Live to Learn

Sonic (it’s a Skylanders reference) ; They/Them ; I will NOT block you for spam liking and reblogging. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The colors hunt me for sport. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Icon by @noxlotl on YT & tumblr, banner (mobile and blog preview) is a photo by an IRL friend of mine

[thecreator-atraitor]

Introduction

It's occurred to me that I don't have a proper, pinned introduction post. This needs to be remedied.

Hello! My online name is Sonic. Before anyone asks, it is NOT a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog. It's a reference to Skylanders.

I'm 25 years old and I'm white (I'm blatantly stating this so that no one gets the wrong idea).

I use They/Them pronouns. I identify as genderfluid, autigender, and agender.

I am disabled, both neurodivergent-wise and physically. Please use tone tags around me.

My special interests change all the time. You can sometimes tell what they are at the moment by looking at my reblogs.

Current Playing: Outbound, Subnautica 2, Garden In!, Mega Mosiac

Currently Reading: (I’m in between books right now)

Let me know if you have any questions!

[jerreeeeeee]

not every mutual fits neatly into an archetypal medievalism but there are some mutuals that im like yeah addressing you as “my liege” would come strangely naturally

[jerreeeeeee]

what mutual is prev

my liege lord

my loyal knight

my wise wizard

my evil advisor

my brother in arms

my lady muse

my wild mermaid friend

my fellow alchemist

my dashing rapscallion

my monstrous foe

Remaining time: 1 day 2 hours

[morggo]

2026 - 2025 - 2024 - 2023

in spite of it all, happy 2026 pride.

you can download current and past hi-res versions of these over at my ko-fi (ok to print for personal use): https://ko-fi.com/mxmorgan/shop/freedownloads

you can also snag shirts here which go to various orgs: https://mxmorgan.threadless.com/collections/pride

these get reposted a whole lot from here to reddit to twitter to tiktok and on and on, and i don't personally care whether or not i'm credited. i made these for everyone to use, enjoy, and find meaning in them. i appreciate folks who do credit me, but if able, please at least link to the threadless shop in the previous post - folks can get an official shirt where 90% of earnings go to trans led orgs focused on mental health (which is an important matter in general, but very personal to me) and not from a scam bot site selling AI-churned maga garbage where you probably won't get one anyway. i also suggest downloading the files from my ko-fi - they are free/PWYW and you can use them to make your own shirt, patch, embroidery project, whatever. tips are always nice, cuz i do like a pizza now and then, but never required for download.

final thought - breaking the pride tradition and more than likely won't make a new piece. the top one from TDOV is all i'm making this year. i have my focus on other projects currently and i don't want to force a poster design. these came from a specific head space and my current head space is Very Tired lmao so i wanna work on other things. 👍

[brightlotusmoon]

What do you mean most people think humanity is inherently cruel, prone to war, and easy to manipulate into murder or power? Wait, is this why so many people wish they were animals or robots or aliens or plants?

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

Yeah, a lot of people in the US have been convinced of that. I think it's a combination of cynicism at the state of capitalist society, and propaganda from those self-same capitalists.

Cynicism, my father is fond of saying, is grief that's been left in the back of the fridge too long. I think people who view humanity as inherently evil are grieving a sense of our lost potential for a better society.

And it suits the 1% to have everyone thinking that humanity inherently sucks, because then they don't have to consider that everyone else may not be like them, and that there is something seriously wrong with them.

[brightlotusmoon]

Thank you. That's my exact perspective, now that I've honestly thought. I'm very very aware that people are cruel. I know they would kill each other as soon as look at each other. And maybe I genuinely grieve that potential for love. I know that's why I got laughed at and mocked for believing in human kindness.

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

If you look at what people are doing for each other in Minneapolis, in Portland, in Chicago, and elsewhere, you'll see ample evidence that people can and will readily be kind, as well. I believe cruelty is the exception, not the norm.

[brightlotusmoon]

Cruelty feels so normalized now that I feel like I might be losing my mind - and then I think about these cities coming together, all these people protecting one another, even and especially the most cynical and pessimistic. There's always hope. I believe people want to be kind, and I refuse to be mocked for it.

[zhenya-grey]

Kindness and compassion is more natural to humanity than people think. And you're right, this is why people want to be (or even believe firmly) that they are some kind of not human. After all it's more comfortable to dissociate away from the problem than be a force of the good in humanity against all odds. Those odds being the seemingly overwhelming negativity.

I have a lot I could say about how people should not take their humanity for granted.

Cruelty isn't normalized, it's forced. Keep strong, love. You're part of why I love humans.

[brightlotusmoon]

I love you.

[zhenya-grey]

I love you

[brightlotusmoon]

I'll see you in our dreams

[blamebrampton]

This is a beautiful thread, but I need to add something. Humans became humans because we could cooperate and empathise, not because we were inherently cruel. Our ancestors worked together to hunt large animals, to develop understandings of food crops that would lead to agriculture, to survive in deadly climates. We know that early humans took care of their wounded, that old and young people we fed and protected even when they weren’t ‘useful’, that men and women worked together hunting and gathering. Because we could cooperate, we succeeded more. We ate more. Our brains grew beyond our most basic biological needs and became more complex, and we could invent things that required yet more cooperation, like language.

On a basic historical and scientific level, the urge to be kind, to be part of a community, to work together is what literally made us human. Knob ends who crap on about ‘selfish genes’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ are fundamentally misunderstanding the data and basically having a wank to cover up the fact they’re crap at being human.

[philosopherking1887]

OK, but the research on how cooperation led to us being human also shows that in-group bonds and trust often grow in proportion to out-group suspicion and hostility (see this article for a concise explanation). One of the things that humans evolved to be able to do by cooperating at large scales was attacking other groups (one of the key case studies on this page about the evolution of human cooperation, even in leaderless societies).

I really, really need people to stop turning it into a binary of "people are inherently (universally, solely) cruel/ selfish/ competitive" and "people are inherently (universally, solely) kind/ altruistic/ cooperative." Human groups have survived by being capable of both, depending on circumstances, depending on the target (often, helping in-group members in preference to others, or cooperating to fight rival groups), and also in mixed proportions across a society, so that people with different tendencies can specialize in different pursuits, depending on whether competiveness or cooperativeness is more conducive to success. If it were solely cooperation and compassion that had enabled humanity to survive and expand, then any selfish, cruel, and competitive tendencies would have died out, or at least would be much rarer than they in fact are -- anomalies, like genetic diseases, rather than about as prevalent as their (apparent) opposites throughout human history, in all parts of the world, and ready to be drawn out by certain social situations or cultural trends.

Humanity as a whole isn't essentially one thing. If we want to build a world with more kindness, we can't assume that if we can just take out the anomalous evil 1% who have been corrupting the rest of us ("it suits the 1% to have everyone thinking that humanity inherently sucks"; "cruelty is the exception, not the norm"; "Cruelty isn't normalized, it's forced"), everyone will automatically revert to their virtuous, benevolent nature and there will be no more problems. That is a kind of rhetoric I see all too frequently among the Left, and it is dangerous; it is the same way of thinking that has led to purges and "reeducation camps," from the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution to Stalin to the Chinese Cultural Revolution to the Cambodian genocide. We need to be aware that selfishness and cruelty will not just go away, and instead learn to deal with them compassionately and, where possible, channel them productively by setiing up the right incentive structures (as the agon existed in the basically collectivist culture of the ancient Greek polis so that individuals could use competition as an impetus to hone their skills and prove their superior ability to serve the polis).

[lurks-no-more]

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

[sparrowlucero]

more ms paint dragons (available on my kofi as adoptables!)

[warmfigure]

i am massively overdue for a very very good week where not a single bad thing happens and everything is easy

[unlettered-heathen]

reblog to give prev a very good week where not a single bad thing happens and everything is easy

[dreamingnemleria]

[vmkhoneyy]

“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!

[naamahdarling]

"We took in a kitten that was starving, injured, and shot with a pellet gun."

"Oh my god, people are awful!"

"They're not. A person rescued her, other people who are trained in helping animals treated her injuries to make her healthy again, and so so so many people contributed to pay her medical costs, I don't even know how many. That she was hurt by...what, one person? Three? Certainly not many. Is honestly maybe the least important and least meaningful part of her story."

"...Oh."

I am holding a triumph of human kindness in my lap right now and her name is Fancy.

[naamahdarling]

[great-and-small]

I’ll never forget I once had to break the news to two women that their dog had cancer, and as they cried and hugged and asked me questions I said something about how I was grateful this pup had such a loving family to support her- only for these ladies to inform me one of them wasn’t actually an owner at all, she was just the other woman’s Uber driver…

So this driver tells me she’s literally never met the other lady in her life, but when this passenger started crying in the car with her dog because she was worried, this angel in the form of an Uber driver went off the clock, came inside the building, and waited over an hour in a busy emergency room with a complete stranger just so she would have someone there by her side in a scary situation. This woman even took notes about everything I said so the owner wouldn’t have to try and remember it all later.

I see plenty of stuff at my job that makes me tempted to lose my faith in humanity but all I do is remember that Uber driver and it comes roaring back to me just like that. Humans are so unbelievably good, man.

[followthebluebell]

#weirdly it ended up being a uterine tumor (not super common) and the dog was cured with an OVH#a rare feel good story from the ER 🥹#Uber driver came for the dog’s follow up appointment as well!!!

[6qubed]

"the world is a cold and uncaring place" then warm it up. care, dammit

[the-haiku-bot]

“the world is a cold

and uncaring place” then warm

it up. care, dammit

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[hazard-symbols-that-fuck-hard]

Posted on the noticeboard outside my uni lab.

[thelatestkate]

[bogleech]

Investigator breaches white supremacist dating sites, exposes 8,000 users

An investigative journalist infiltrated three white supremacist platforms, including the dating site WhiteDate, exfiltrating over 8,000 user

[kyra45]

Hey you. Yes you. C’mere.

You must now %100 complete the last game you played. Can you?

Yes

No

I’ll try

It’s not possible

I have to do it again?

I ain’t doing that again

Aw no

Too difficult

(Random hollow knight player who has to get %100+)

(See results)

Voting ended onJan 8

[justbadcompass31]

[brightlotusmoon]

"Everyone in McKinney is dead" I love how deadpan and matter of fact he is.

[thecoggs]

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service. 

[tarastarr1]

This is really great??

Chapter 1: Prologue: Why LGBTQ Historic Sites Matter by Mark Meinke

Chapter 2: Introduction to the LGBTQ Heritage Initiative Theme Study by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 3: Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History in the United States by Leisa Meyer and Helis Sikk

Chapter 4: The History of Queer History: One Hundred Years of the Search for Shared Heritage by Gerard Koskovich

Chapter 5: The Preservation of LGBTQ Heritage by Gail Dubrow

Chapter 6: LGBTQ Archeological Context by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 7: A Note about Intersectionality by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 8: Making Bisexuals Visible by Loraine Hutchins

Chapter 9: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe

Chapter 10: Transgender History in the US and the Places that Matter by Susan Stryker

Chapter 11: Breathing Fire: Remembering Asian Pacific American Activism in Queer History by Amy Sueyoshi

Chapter 12: Latina/o Gender and Sexuality by Deena J. González and Ellie D. Hernandez

Chapter 13: “Where We Could Be Ourselves”: African American LGBTQ Historic Places and Why They Matter by Jeffrey A. Harris

Chapter 14: LGBTQ Spaces and Places by Jen Jack Gieseking

Chapter 15: Making Community: The Places and Spaces of LGBTQ Collective Identity Formation by Christina B. Hanhardt

Chapter 16: LGBTQ Business and Commerce by David K. Johnson

Chapter 17: Sex, Love, and Relationships by Tracy Baim

Chapter 18: LGBTQ Civil Rights in America by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 19: Historical Landmarks and Landscapes of LGBTQ Law by Marc Stein

Chapter 20: LGBTQ Military Service by Steve Estes

Chapter 21: Struggles in Body and Spirit: Religion and LGBTQ People in US History by Drew Bourn

Chapter 22: LGBTQ and Health by Katie Batza

Chapter 23: LGBTQ Art and Artists by Tara Burk

Chapter 24: LGBTQ Sport and Leisure by Katherine Schweighofer

Chapter 25: San Francisco: Placing LGBTQ Histories in the City by the Bay by Donna J. Graves and Shayne E. Watson

Chapter 26: Preservation of LGBTQ Historic & Cultural Sites – A New York City Perspective by Jay Shockley

Chapter 27: Locating Miami’s Queer History by Julio Capó, Jr.

Chapter 28: Queerest Little City in the World: LGBTQ Reno by John Jeffrey Auer IV

Chapter 29: Chicago: Queer Histories at the Crossroads of America by Jessica Herczeg-Konecny

Chapter 30: Nominating LGBTQ Places to the National Register of Historic Places and as National Historic Landmarks: An Introduction by Megan E. Springate and Caridad de la Vega

Chapter 31: Interpreting LGBTQ Historic Sites by Susan Ferentinos

Chapter 32: Teaching LGBTQ History and Heritage by Leila J. Rupp

[stickthisbig]

Let me explain what is happening here, because I don’t think that this post is very representative of why this matters.

The purpose of the theme studies, this one included, is to locate the physical remnants of the past, so that they can be properly preserved by governmental and nonprofit entities. They are not just descriptions of history, they are documents that can be used for grant work, for preventing places from being destroyed, or for promoting the restoration of those places. This theme study is a statement from the federal government that the preservation of these places is important, and that can be translated by the states into these places being legally required to be protected.

The theme studies are also really important because they recontextualized what it means to locate history in a place. This started before the LGBT theme study, there’s a lot of this in the Latino theme study, but they present a reconsideration of what you can call historic when the actions of a group left no physical traces on the spaces that they used. We are now seeing the possibility of considering places like cruising areas as historic properties because they represent the patterns of a culture.

This is the Park Service’s job. This is what you should be expecting from them. There are theme studies and special resource studies on dozens of things. A really important Civil Rights one dropped like last week. The Park Service is charged with running our national parks, sure, but the bulk of their work is like this. This is the type of shit that you can and should expect out of your National Park Service. Nobody else is gonna do it.

[mercurymiscellany]

LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study - Telling All Americans' Stories (U.S. National Park Service)

LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History is an extensive and comprehensive look at LGBTQ herit

updated link 👍

[spnyuri]

someone apologized for commenting late… 2 months after the fic was posted 😭😭 girl that’s EARLY thats fresh

[spnyuri]

times it’s appropriate to comment on a fic:

- if it was written sometime between 10000 years ago and 3 seconds ago

times it’s NOT appropriate to comment on a fic:

-if you’re gonna be mean 🥺

[squorttle-pox]

sorry for the late addition, but one of my fav fics was carved into the walls of an ancient upper paleolithic cave and thus must have been posted over 10 000 years ago.... can i still comment??

[helluvaandhazbinarelife]

yes. Im fact, you must. Tis required

[squorttle-pox]

fuck,, okay, lemme just,,,

[brightlotusmoon]

I'm pretty sure this is how i met a lot of my mutuals, leaving excited clay hand prints on each other's AO3.

I especially love if I comment on a fic and the author points and is like "It's you! I love your work! I love that you love my work!" and it genuinely makes my day.

(waves to @dysfunctional-doodle whose fics nourish me)

[brightlotusmoon]

@dzhin-grey how we met!

[zhenya-grey]

I don't think I commented. I straight up hunted you down

[brightlotusmoon]

Me, immediately: FRIEND.

[bloodiegawz]

well at least im not 11 or 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 or 17 or 18 or one of those awful years

[johnathandarksouls]

Fie, I remember my teen years, t’was when I was a squire. Terrible thing those years. I am Johnathan Darksouls

[bloodiegawz]

i know you always have my back johnathan darksouls

[no-one-offical]

‎

[unyieldingsilence]

‎ ‎

[ominous-signs]

from here

[applecharmstarhorse-acsh]

Service Pokemon Herdier hard at work!