Ghoulio Iglesias

paypal.me/tradgoth

Everything in that vase except the dark red flowers and the ivory roses was purchased, half wilted, in the reduced bucket an ENTIRE WEEK ago. The dark reds and ivories? TWO WEEKS  (I don’t normally premade bouquets because they end up in the reduced less often and even when they do they’re still more expensive than getting a few bunches of different types of flowers) TWO. WEEKS. From a wilted half price “we are become death” state. Here’s what it looked like a whole entire week ago when I put the new flowers in:

It happens, we’re all human. Even if we try our best to be socially conscious, we can’t expect perfection. There are a lot of posts talking about what is and isn’t appropriation but not a lot about what to do AFTER you know. If you discover your practice has been less socially conscious and respectful than you thought, here’s what happens next:

Don’t beat yourself up. 

Most people have one of two reactions to being told something they’re doing is bad: they get guilty or they get defensive (because getting defensive helps protect you from feeling guilty.) That’s a normal feeling- we’re told that only bad people do bad things, and we don’t want to be bad people. Getting reactionary and defensive only pushes the harm further, though, especially if you’re talking over members of a marginalized group about their own stuff. Instead, remember the truth: you’re not a bad person for genuinely not knowing better… you were just trying your best with the info you had at the time. What you do AFTER you know says a lot more about your character. 

Learn up. 

Exposing ourselves to a diverse range of voices helps us in so many ways, and discovering insensitivity in our own practice usually helps us reveal a gap. Take some time and fill in that gap and hear from actual members, so you can move forward with a better understanding. Knowing why specifically The Thing You Were Doing is culturally insensitive or appropriative is also super handy.

Apologize

Simple enough. If your actions messed with someone’s day, let them know you’re working to do better. If the harm was public, a public apology is often appreciated too. Just making right on anything wronged, basically. I’m also a fan of kinda “rebalancing” the universe and donating to a relevant nonprofit that supports the culture/otherwise supporting them in some way. Turn it into something good, yk? Lift people up. 

Reflect on the appeal. 

This is more for when it feels important to you in some way. It doesn’t need to be a huge internal journey, but it’s handy to touch on. What drew you to The Thing initially? Was it a useful witch tip you stumbled upon and nothing more? Does something about the structure of it really resonate with you? Or was the original culture just romanticized to have that mysterious and mystical feel? (Again, we’re imperfect humans.) Or was it something else? Getting an idea can help on deciding the next move.

Decide the next step. 

There’s three directions to go here (I love a good list.)

Refine- Sometimes something is only appropriative because of key details, like the terminology we use or a specific sacred plant/tool. So adjusting that properly means everyone goes home happy. 

Reach Out- Sometimes a path or practice is initiative, and cannot be properly accessed without going through the right channels. If this is the case and you really want to do The Thing properly, find your local people and get the ball rolling! Depending on the specific institution this can get very involved, so it’s up to you to decide how much work you’re willing to put in. If approaching it on their terms turns out not to be worth it for you, that’s fine, just proceed to the next step.

Replace- Sometimes a practice really is just closed to us, and that’s the end of it. Time to completely swap it out.This is why reflecting on the appeal can be helpful- it helps you find a suitable replacement by pinpointing exactly what you liked about it. Many open pracitces have the same appeal or similar, it may just take experimenting. Odds are you can find something that you vibe with and feel right at home in while still being socially conscious! 

We thought that they did because they have 12 different molecules for photoreceptors, whereas humans have only 3. BIG difference, right??

Nope. Turns out that they simply do not have the mental wherewithal to blend, and so needed a separate receptor for each color. The human brain adds color emissions together to create a singular representative color, like reverse engineered printing. Shrimp can’t do that. They can’t take light emitting “green” and light emitting “red” and come back with “yellow”, like we do. They have to have a receptor for yellow, and are relatively horrible at distinguishing shades of colors.

paypal.me/marsinaries

venmo.com/fluoresensitive

https://twitter.com/fancy_foxtrot/status/1205747696813756416

Bonus:

So they’re both bisexuals and they wield swords. The movie can be called

I realised too late that they’re wives so they wouldn’t be fighting each other so I thought of it as an enemies-to-lovers thing. Or maybe that’s what lovers do: practice sword fighting while calling each other endearing names