can we bring back the term "fair-weather friend" bc I feel like if fair-weather friends got called that more this whole argument about whether or not you should be there for your friends when it's inconvenient/at what point of personal inconvenience it's ok to bail on your friends would kinda fall apart bc like. we literally have a word for "friend who's only there when you don't need something from them" because the baseline expectation is that a friend should be there even when it sucks. like we used to make fun of people for bailing on their friends.
according to An Immense World, apparently giant squid eyes are, like, UNREASONABLY large, even for something their size living at those depths. the next largest eyes on earth, blue whale eyes, are less than half the size, and swordfish, who live at similar depths as giant squid and have the largest eyes of any fish, have eyes that could fit inside a giant squid's pupil.
eyes hit serious diminishing returns wrt resource costs vs vision quality as they get bigger, so the question became: what the FUCK do giant (and colossal) squid need to see so badly that they couldn't see with swordfish-sized eyes that's justifying that massive energy cost? that nothing else in the deep ocean needs to see so fucking badly??
turns out the one strength eyes that big really have over much smaller eyes is: seeing large glowing objects in water deeper than 500 meters from an appreciable distance.
sperm whales are the primary predator of giant squid. sperm whales don't glow. BUT! water that deep is full of bioluminescent creatures-- these creatures light up when bumped into. something a sperm whale's size is continuously bumping into those critters, it's just surrounded by a glowing field all the time when it's swimming at those depths, visible from a distance-- if you have the right eyes-- as a massive glowing shape. so basically the only reason to have eyes the size of soccer balls is if you live in the deep ocean and your life depends on having a heads up when a hungry sperm whale lurking around
and also I gotta say, the imagery... the huge lurking threat betrayed only by the ambiguous glowing shape of its movements through the water, is really evocative, if spooky deep-sea games aren't already using that to make things extremely ominous then they should really start
I feel sorry for the old man, but it was stealing. There is no apparently about it. Water is not free, it’s not a right to have it, and people pay must pay for it. If a government gives a thing to you like utilities, its still not free because they take it from somewhere else, like in taxes.
I know this post is a few years old, but I stumbled on it and I just want to also point out… Even aside from water being free or not, even aside from water being a human right,
the old man wasn’t stealing.
He was using a neighbor’s water, that the neighbor pays for, with the neighbor’s permission. Nothing was stolen. The old man just wasn’t the one paying. If someone comes to my house and I let them charge their phone while they’re there, are they STEALING electricity because I’m the one who pays the electric bill? If I take someone out to dinner, are they STEALING their meal if I pay for both of us? Get fucked.
I hope that person has become a better kinder person since 2021, but I"m not holding my breath.
Someone mentioned how they were having a hard time creating a world for their fantasy fiction geographically because they kept reinventing the island of Britain, which also happened to my good close enemy George R. R. Martin. I would like to suggest North Carolina. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous but North Carolina has an awesome geographic setup for a fantasy kingdom, I think. Inhospitable barrier islands, constantly shifting shoals in the sound, swamps with alligators, venomous snakes and carnivorous plants, lots of very flat and somewhat sparsely populated farmland, foothills, mines, mountains full of mysterious phenomenon that were originally very difficult to navigate and people still get lost in today. It kind of rocks.
There are actually 36 carnivorous plant species native to North Carolina, roughly half of all carnivorous plant species in the United States are found in North Carolina! I added the carnivorous plant detail because that’s something I love about the state. We have so many fucking bugs that the plants keep evolving to eat them.
I love that giant man eating Venus flytraps are worldbuilding staples in untamed tropical fantasy settings but they’re actually native to a small region in the Carolinas.
And I agree with the notes, the Chesapeake Bay + Great Dismal Swamp (partially in NC anyway) and the South Carolina Lowcountry would be good geographic additions to this.
big fan of robin being the one to see crocodile on bad days - his lowest points, especially when he struggles to take care of himself because of his disability. and how socially that disability is associated with his success and morality - hes a pirate who lost a limb, clearly he's a failure. or at least thats what rings in the back of his head everytime he glances down. he had to replace it with something vicious and threatening otherwise the thoughts would take over. but they always get worse when he has a bad day of phantom pain or something, where he cant coordinate himself and function in his day-to-day and he needs help. and asking for help is his biggest fear but its even worse because robin doesn't see that feature of him as anything morally indicative. its just a neutral part of his body. anyway
I’ve been kicking around a thought lately that when it comes to SFF we could probably bypass some of the perennial political vs. apolitical vs. everything-is-political-apolitical-storytelling-doesn’t-exist by instead formulating a spectrum from politically coherent to politically incoherent
Essentially, politically coherent works are works where the political message of the story is supported by all (or at least most) of the major story elements, and a politically incoherent work is a story where the political messages of different elements are seemingly all shooting off on different vectors.
The nice thing about this is it can bypass authorial intent (and the discussion of whether intent matters). This is about the text.
Like, politically incoherent works that had no authorial thought behind them are a dime a dozen of course, and politically coherent works that clearly had a lot of authorial thought are if not equally common than at least easy to spot. But there are also plenty of works that are politically coherent without the author intending them that way—like, whatever faults there are with Project Hail Mary, the overall opinion the book has about the nature of humanity & of science is consistent throughout. Likewise there are stories where the authors clearly meant a coherent political point and totally wiffed it. (The works @specialagentartemis has collectively termed “cozy colonialism” come to mind)
So there’s a utility in replacing the question “is this story political?” (Yes, always, but if the answer is always yes the question becomes kinda useless) with “Is this story politically coherent?” Because a yes or no there will tell a prospective reader something about what to expect.
Here's some of the notes, starting with the things multiple people brought up:
SHRIMP COCKTAIL:
banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol
generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is
#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro
And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!
POMEGRANATES:
zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple
thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute
sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.
FRUIT TREES:
zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''
salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE
baander: #cranberry trees
DOUGH/BATTER:
maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre
livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles
lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY
Some other topics:
ANIMALS:
catenarwhal: #mandatory 'how cows produce milk' mention#i'll never recover from that one I fear
piromantic: #one time i saw someone fake their way through describing how spiders behave
pluto-lichen: horses
misskittypotter: #stardew valley faking its way through what fresh fish smell like
pa-pa-plasma: #saw someone faking their way through knowing what a seal is once #i still am fucked up over that one to this day. they just straight up did not know #& they were NOT good at guessing it either like it was clear they had never googled that animal ever #& was only just now realizing via answering questions from anons that seals are not!! what they assumed. initially
SEX:
dykevandyke: #what a prostate is #and where it is located #as in. external.
dreamyeyedrose: #I remember back in the ff.net days reading an Ichigo/Renji fic where the writer assumed the penises go inside each other #and I was like “I mean I don't know how it works for sure I don't have one but idk if that's how it works”
SOME OTHER FOOD STUFF:
thetrekkiehasthephonebox: #add another one to the list bloggers#this character is cooking a salad
shosta: #still baffled about the published work that didn't know food could freeze
sun-dari: #once i read a fic where the author didn't understand cinnamon
alto-tenure: #read something recently where the author was just. blatantly wrong about spices
dramatic-dolphin: #i saw someone try to fake their way through what ramen is once. like 14 years ago.#but i remember.#i was very confused about ramen for a few months. they were writing it so authoritatively.
the-celery-stalks-at-midnight: #i will never ever forget someone putting leftover fries in the microwave to reheat them and setting the timer for five minutes
typeghost: #this sparked a memory of a hannibal fic where the author had to fake their way through writing about gravy
draculin: #the one fanfic where the author knows about coffee only as a concept wrote a character as a coffee drinker#was very interesting#I don't remember the fandom or the plot but I was mesmerized by the coffee actions and choices
11235811235811: #there's a lot of faking their way thru congee in the svsss fandom i'll also note
fishali3n: #read one where the person clearly didnt know what tofu is
emmy-everafter: #in the aftermath of shadow and bone s2 i saw a lot of people pretending to know what stroopwafels are #babes they are more like cookies than breakfast waffles #like yes there is a waffle pattern but you're not gonna cut into a stack of them with syrup and sugar#🤣🤣🤣
NON-FOOD STUFF:
red-umbrella-811: Shoutout to Dame Agatha Christie for faking her way through what a wrench is in a very popular published work.
bluebeetle: #once saw someone have a character put an entire phone book in their pocket
nonametis: #- sex talk in languages other than english #<- or just the petnames in a different language other than English
sadisticpony: #the fanfiction i saw this week where op DIDNT KNOW HOW AUTOMATIC DOORS WORKED #and that they arent in peoples homes!!! of course. also opening the automatic door for someone is unironically very funny but its not #its not like. grabbing the door handle to let someone in. helpppp
danmeichael: #reminds me of the fic with the figure drawing class where the character started with the feet. #i love you feet first figure drawing author
meowmix1100blr: #me watching this one fic absolutely obliterate what the board of directors does
vexedhexes: #one time i read an architect character making a doorway bigger by building a bigger door #what a beautiful world. #OH. also gravity falls fic where they go 'oh piedmont is in california so its warm all year round'
leveragehunters: #characters going to a beer garden #And it's literally a garden outside the pub#It was a very cute mistake
fitofpique: #yes! #grown men do not get blind drunk off two beers #but i am possibly guilty of the hypothermia one #assuming it does not make you very horny?
dadvans-likes: #always thinking abt the soup kitchen fic #the entire setting of the fic was 'soup kitchen' #and i very quickly realized #the author did not know what a soup kitchen was #and they thought that soup kitchens only served soup #fic
msmargaretmurry: #i love fanfiction #once read a fic where the characters played 20 questions #but the author seemed to not know how to play 20 questions and was just kind of winging it........ #immaculate
shakespeareaddict: #Look I know not all of us are hockey experts #But it takes about ten seconds of research or any attention paid to the show to realize #That the Stanley cup playoffs are not in fucking September
baejax-the-great: #the funniest one i saw #was someone faking what church is like #like 1. they really didn't have to write an entire church experience for their fic #and 2. they had clearly never even watched a show where people went to church #it was bonkers weird
twosunson: #things ive seen authors faking #knowing how to unclog a drain #knowing. literally any history #knowing what ketamine looks like (apparently- oregano) #(you know who you are)
waterhorseyblues-ao3: #beltane being celebrated in winter #wales being portrayed as a completely separated land from england (i wish) #characters getting up after weeks of bedrest like that dosnt completely fuck you up
violetfairydust: #i once read a fic where the flight time from london to seattle was 3 hours
purekesseltrash: One time, in a fic set specifically in Des Moines, IA, two of the characters casually drove 20 minutes to the ocean. The memory continues to delight me. I want to know where that author thought that Iowa was.
I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.
I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.
My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.
Three years.
No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.
I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.
This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.
I work in a different library and can confirm, it's a decision based on popularity not censorship
we're big enough to have lots of shelf space but still have the problem on a different scale. We do have a back storage room rather than completely getting rid of some things, but having to ask for that might be a barrier for sensitive subject matter and prevent people from casually stumbling across something of interest
Yep. Different library worker here, we weeded adult non-fiction recently bc it's most rarely used and we needed to clear a bookshelf of space, and there were a decent number of queer books on the list. Thankfully not all of them, but some (we had a lot lol). Our criteria is also no borrows in 3yrs. I can't borrow the whole list by myself. I do try to get these books in, and the local authority are happy to buy them, but we need space for new books every so often and we can't keep everything forever! If you want them, you have to use them!
(incidentally, the whole list was 35 pages long, which... please borrow the books you want people)
I didn't have time to comment the first time I reblogged, but I can add now:
I'm also a librarian and queer books are almost always cut first when we have to weed for space or prioritize new releases over old items because no one reads them
I will say, when I worked at a large downtown location, we had a "browsing card" that we would check out items we found taken off the shelf and left on a table, as an example of a book that had clearly been read, just not checked out by anyone
it's possible queer books do actually get a bit of unfair treatment in this regard because people may be nervous or outright scared to check them out onto an account with their name on it. so they get browsed at a much higher rate, but if a library doesn't have a specific system in place (or need for it) to count browsed items, then it looks like they aren't being used and they get weeded
for other librarians, a browsing card is a great idea if you have enough staff for the extra work / enough items left out to justify it
for patrons, check out queer books even if you don't read them! you're not lying or committing any type of fraud. you're keeping books on the shelf long enough for pride season when people are interested in checking them out again and for people scared to use their own accounts or who don't have library cards
for anyone nervous about using their library card, libraries do not keep search histories of what you check out!! this means even if the government does come back with a warrant, *wet farting noise* too bad! it doesn't exist!
I have to wonder how often they aren't checked out because those in an exploratory period may not feel safe enough for them to go home with them, too. Kids, for example, or folks who have ended up in a het marriage that... Doesn't feel like it's quite right (or may be physically abusive).
This is most definitely one of the causes of this. That's why it's so important for folks who *can* to *do*.
It feels like such a small thing, but all movements are made up of small things! We have this mindset that in order to get everything done, everyone must be doing their (or *the*) absolute best at all times. But not everyone can do the same things, to the same degree, with the same amount of productivity or success. Not everyone can; sometimes, they're the ones that need help. Sometimes people just need help.
This post is very much so intended for the people who can. I've seen a lot of replies from folks who say they don't have to (or don't think about) checking out or requesting queer books from the library specifically because they *can* buy them, can pirate them, or already have them in their house or on their computers or phones. But in instances like that, keeping these books in circulation is less for you and more for the people who can't. The folks who come to the library, who don't have access to internet--or even electricity--at home and would never--have never--been able to interact with this "ubiquitous queer community" we have here online who has made so many of these. materials so avaliable to the rest of us.
And... if I can be a little frank. Sometimes the hyperaccessibility of these materials online (through pirating, cheap e-book copies, etc) gives people a false sense of security. It implies that these things are an infinate resource, good for "When I get around to it".
And often, you won't. There's so much to read and so much to do. So much to download and so much to sit down and stare at for hours. That kind of mental scope puts books in people's hands (or phones), but never in their heads.
But the moment your favorite document archival site gets knocked offline for breaching copyright or your go-to mega corporate audiobook distributor decides it doesn't want "those" materials anymore, what's left? What did you download? What information did you internalize? Did you ever get around to it? If you did, great, but what good does that do for the person who didn't? Are you going to be the one to redistribute that information? Are you going to communicate it in the place of the author whose words are no longer publically accesible or, mostly avaliable, but only behind hefty paywalls and financial gatekeeping? How would someone else get a hold of it? How could they, if they wanted?
Gosh... there's so many options. I wouldn't know where to start without knowing who I'm talking to and what they're looking for. What I can recommend is for folks to check out creators like @makingqueerhistory who have spent just a ridiculously beautiful amount of time collecting queer history and book lists! You'll find something in seconds reading their page.
Personal pitch: I liked the books Tar Hollow Trans and Gay Poems for Red States. Both great.
I'm glad I was tagged in this because it means I can cosign (and also add a little nugget of info).
I live in a province that is currently trying to ban queer books from libraries, and as a library patron, this is terrifying. 95% of the books I read are from the library and a lot of them are way out of my budget to buy personally.
Making Queer History would not exist without the school library I skipped class in to write articles. It would not exist without my friends with library cards for their universities sharing them and getting me access to rare texts. I would not be able to read as much as I do without Libby and Hoopla. If I have ever given you a book recommendation, know that I likely got it from the library first.
I cannot overstate the importance of protecting libraries and checking out queer books. And I want to say thank you to everyone above for being as passionate as I am about queer books in libraries.
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