let's go see what's out there

ROUX ARLEN - genderless transmasculine entity

[loumandliker]

this is a bit of a hot take but when it comes to lgbtq identities i don’t think any experience is actually exclusive to any given sexuality/gender

[loumandliker]

trans men have experiences in common with lesbians who have experiences in common with bisexuals who have experiences in common with gay men who have experiences in common with aromantic people who have experiences in common with bisexuals who have experiences in common with asexuals who have experiences in common with lesbians who have experiences in common with gay men who have experiences in common with trans women who have experiences in common with trans men etc etc etc lived experiences are not as cut and dry as “this experience is exclusive to bisexuals” or “this experience is exclusive to lesbians” or “this experience is exclusive to this kind of trans people” because oftentimes queer people are brutalized and affected in the same ways when it comes to interpersonal and legislative experiences. people don’t exist in discrete identity categories that all have unique experiences with no overlap.

[spark-so-floss]

#the point of breaking out of toxic boxes isn't to go invent your own and be just as brutal about them

[rybesome]

Some thoughts on trauma, healing, and self-forgiveness.

[spooksier]

have a gender moment about being divine and human

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[cedarspiced]

[leescoresbies]

so in case you’re about to watch a cw television show based in the southwest that’s featuring an episode based on some supposed reservation – or you’ve read anything about the situation on the navajo nation recently – i wanted to share some ways that we all can help the diné (navajo) community beyond kind-of depicting them on television. 

today the navajo nation surpassed new york state and new jersey for the highest per-capita coronavirus infection rate in the country. that’s 2,304 cases per 100,000 people. 173,600 people live on the navajo nation, roughly. below are a number of organizations & community groups raising money & resources. it would mean so much to me if you’d consider supporting these communities right now - & continue to think about how you can support the indigenous communities near you, & understand the indigenous land you might currently occupy. 

the navajo water project helps bring running water to navajo families without, and also helps families pay their water & electricity bills 

the adopt an elder project helps feed navajo elders during the pandemic

the navajo health command operations center is the navajo nation’s only official fundraising and donation effort

rez rising is a database of native american small businesses across the southwest

the kinlani mutual aid group is a flagstaff, az based volunteer group collecting supplies

the native american relief fund operated by the native american community foundation provides emergency grants to communities for supplies & more

and a number of community-run fundraising efforts:

northern diné covid relief effort

navajo & hopi families relief fund

native student emergency fund

bluff area mutual aid - supply delivery in utah

navajo nation relief project

if you’re aware of any other legitimate fundraising efforts to help these communities, or the indigenous communities near you, please add them. 

[nereb-and-dungalef]

the Navajo Water Project also sells blankets and jewelry, and the Adopt an Elder Project sells rugs hand made by Navajo Elders if that appeals to any of you!

[iguanamouth]

a big ol fully painted commission for theportlandmerchant of…….itself………who is this thing, even i dont know………………………………………………….

[jupiterjames]

There is no greater feeling of love in the world than when you look at a cat and it immediately starts purring before you even pet it.

[pottedfairies]

we should treat love as something to be built rather than found

[pottedfairies]

when we treat love as something sacred and rare, we miss opportunities to critically engage with it or even explore different types of love. when we treat love as sacred and something to be found, we are implying that the relationship and construction of love is perfect from its inception. that prevents open dialogue and transfer of ideas and definitions of what relationships are and what is desired from them

when we treat love as something to be built, we allow for the opportunity to love anyone we meet and the threat of finding The One fades. when we treat love as something to be built, we allow for nuance in any and all our relationships and for those relationships to hold more weight on our lives. when we treat love as something to be built, it becomes a communal act, rather than something we do alone

[myautisticpov]

Diagnostic criteria for autism are always so badly written.

Like, the trains thing.

I’m going to keep coming back to the trains thing because it baffles me.

So, the example used for special interests in a lot of diagnostic criteria is trains.

“Has an unusually strong interest in something - for example, trains”

And, like, sure. Okay. Special interests can be anything. Trains are a possibility.

But, like, special interests don’t appear out of nowhere. You generally have to be exposed to something first to get a special interest in it.

So, like, I know a lot of autistic people, and I know no one with a special interest in trains.

You know what the most common special interest is, in my experience?

Star Wars.

Yeah, go fucking figure, the ubiquitous movie franchise that almost everyone has seen at least one movie of is the most common special interest, in my experience.

Now, I do kind of understand the trains thing. The line between special interest and regular interest isn’t always super obvious.

Like, collecting Star Wars toys, or writing Star Wars fanfic, or marathoning the movies a bunch of times doesn’t necessarily make it a special interest.

And since it’s socially acceptable (especially in modern day nerd culture) to do all of those things, it’s not a glaring indicator of autism to outsiders.

If someone’s really into something obscure - like trains - however, it can make the fact that it’s a special interest super obvious.

But it’s still bad to have it be the go-to special interest example because it’s just not that common.

Plenty of autistic people don’t have obscure special interests. Their SIs are in the Marvel movies or Star Wars or Star Trek or Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Hell, part of the problem with women and girls not getting diagnosed is because no one notices their special interests in, like, makeup or boy bands.

When you use “trains” as the example, you’re sending the implicit message that special interests have to be obscure and out of the social norm, and that’s just not the case for most people - especially now that a lot of geek culture has gone mainstream and there’s a huge nostalgia cash-in.

Having a special interest in Power Rangers was weird for me when I was 14. It’s not now that it’s a big blockbuster movie and most people exposed to the internet review-sphere are at least aware of Linkara’s History of Power Rangers.

Special interests don’t have to be outside the social norm to be special interests. It’s how the autistic person feels about them and engages with them that defines it.

[moringmark]

[runcibility]

I liked this post, scrolled for like another minute before I went “SHIT FUCK SHIT” and scrolled back to reblog it

[isfree2fly]

Muslim brothers and sisters

So I found this app called Scan Halal where you scan the bar code of your food and it tells you if its halal or not. It’s a free app too. Pass this on so others can see and worry a little less about their food/snack choices

[thislittlething]

Yessss, it is very handy especially in non-muslim countries

[hisnamewasbeanni]

If you reblog this for no other reason, do it because it’ll piss off Pauline Hanson. And pissing off Pauline Hanson is reason enough to do anything.

[totalsillyfilly]

Pissing off Pauline Hanson is my favourite pass time

[sockknitterporg]

If you reblog this for no other reason, reblog it to make a Muslim feel safer, more accepted, and/or more informed about food.

Other people and their needs are not your game pieces to use to offend others or make yourself feel better.

[inkyshark]

This is actually a cool app! I had a customer come into my candy store and we discovered that certain flavors of the same brand of candy sticks were okay to eat! It was really handy for them to be able to scan it rather than rely on the ingredient list, which could be flawed sometimes! 

[basinke]

Ooooh this is neat!

[elfwreck]

Nice!

For those wondering “why don’t you just read the ingredients”: Even if you trust the ingredient list, you don’t know which “natural flavors” were used, and you may not know where the various chemicals came from. And a lot of people have a hard time reading tiny print, and don’t want to stand in the aisle for five minutes trying to work their way through 95 words of 4-point type.

So glad this exists! We need more ways for people to find the info that’s important to them!

[localbaphomet]

.

[derpypandaqueen]

Since I know none of yall have lost your energy for supporting black people right now, you should check out this blog with over 1000 black-owned online shops.

https://themadmommy.com/black-owned-etsy-shops/

[fireandwonder]

It’s organized by category (so it’s not as overwhelming as it sounds) and there’s an LGBT section!

[hazeldomain]

Stop saying “q slur.”

Queer isn’t a slur. It’s our identity.

If you can’t bring yourself to say our name, don’t talk about us.

There are people out there who think that being queer is disgusting and that queer people should feel ashamed. Don’t help them.

Queer is our word and we are proud of it.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Wow, I like that Saffron art! 

If you’re looking for a webcomic community to speak with other comics people, there’s the Webcomics Review Discord, or the SpiderForest Forums, both of which have people who’ll be glad to talk shop with you and help you out.

Personally, my advice for you is to just make a comic you think is good, and worry about the rest of that shit later. You don’t have to make a webtoon just because everyone else is doing it. I don’t, and I’m succe-, um, Zack Morrison doesn’t, and they’re successful. Prequel, my favoritest comic ever, is text with images in a format obviously inspired by, but not quite the same as, Homestuck’s, and it sells tons of merch. 

(In part because the Merch itself is unusually high quality for a webcomic).

Do you want to release Mon-Wed-Fri like Gunnerkrigg Court, or in big chapter batches like Homestuck 2? Both of those comics are successful. Do what you like! Then tell your friends and mention it casually at parties and stuff. Is that “optimal”? No, but who gives a shit. Neither is making a webcomic in a weird format just because it’s the current trend and not because you like that format.

It will be a long time before your webcomic takes off (assuming it ever does! Most webcomics are not successful business ventures!), no matter what you do, and setting up an entire social media team for a comic with 10 pages isn’t the best use of your time or mental energy right now. Make something you think is great, and then find 200 people who agree with you enough to give you a few bucks a month, and you’re set. Don’t try to be the next Pet Foolery 

(Fourteen Fucking Thousand Patrons). 

Just make the best comic you can, a comic you think is good, a comic you enjoy making (which is the point, right), and then when you’ve got a chapter done then maybe think about the “Social Media” or send artists fanart of your characters with their characters so they feel compelled to share an ad of your comic (I’ll reblog anything with a nice drawing of Saffron or Jill or someone else from my comics in it). Don’t worry about “the business” just yet.

[localbaphomet]

-

[gynandromorph]

the annoying thing about adhd is that like, most of the symptoms you can’t even argue are “evolutionary flaws” or “chemical imbalances.” literally it’s just that it’s not good for lining somebody else’s pockets. being “distractible” helps people notice predators or juicy berries out of the corners of their eyes. hyperfocusing on a task until it’s done is literally exactly in line with what an alleged persistence predator would need to do to actually follow through on hunting other animals. there’s so many little things that are obviously beneficial to have outside of a fucking factory assembly line

[teaboot]

NEUROLOGICAL DIVERSITY IS AS IMPORTANT TO SURVIVAL AS GENETIC DIVERITY, and OUR CONCEPT OF DISABILITY AND NEURODIVERGENCE IS BUILT ON A FOUNDATION OF OUR OWN MAKING

[teaboot]

When I lived out in the woods and spent my time herding sheep and hunting bullfrogs, nobody gave two shits that I walked around barefoot and said whatever popped into my head out loud.

My hyperfocus and poor sense of time made me a hard worker, my compulsion to sort and organize random crap kept the property clean, and my special interest in native flora and fauna meant I could go out into the woods thanksgiving morning and come home with all the pricy mushrooms and herbs we couldn’t normally afford otherwise.

Who cared that I was awkward? There was nobody around except the occasional customer or temp worker, and those kinds of interactions could be entirely scripted.

Who cared that I dressed funny, had frizzy, dry hair, talked flat, and ate raw onions? Who gave two shits that I built forts out of scrap metal and twine? How did it matter that I passed time running in circles over old truck chassis’?

There were no bright lights, no packed-in crowds, no huge collections of shouty, screamy, smelly people. Nobody stared at me for more than a few seconds. Nobody critiqued my body language.

I was a bit odd, yeah, but all I knew was that I was smart and creative and better than other people at fixing problems.

I went damn near fifteen years out there not even suspecting I might be autistic. Nobody even thought to bring it up.

Now I’m in the city, and I have a hard time going into the middle of a store. I hate the mall. My eyes hurt. Ambulances and fire trucks and cars with bad brakes go by and I cover my ears and nobody else does. I’ve been told I come off as “quirky”.

My question is, though, if an atypical person is in an environment that suits them, can anyone tell?

Most folks only know who’s blind when the lights are on. If the sky went dark tomorrow, we’d have no idea.

[vltraman]

Neurodiversity is so important specifically because of these kinds of stories. The thought that just because your mind works differently it is considered a deviation bothers me so much, because it’s this normalisation bullshit that makes coping and living with your own mind that much harder. You shouldn’t be defined by the way you operate and ‘curing’ isn’t an option; we should be looking at ways of helping people live at peace with their minds, without treating them as disorders.

[localbaphomet]

[...] If an atypical person is in an environment that suits them, can anyone tell?

gods I feel like I just read my childhood in one sentence