Fuck John Hammond

And my manager was like no!!!! If that happened, I would drive to find you guys in my truck and we could eat stuff from my wife's garden and I would make sure everyone I know survived!! I would carry you all on my shoulders away from the zombies!!

THAT'S IT, IT'S FINALLY ALL WASHED!! The whole Romeldale CVM fleece!!

Spent most of my free time the last three and a half days combing wool. So far I've got one bag down, and four more to go still. This is not including the wool from this fleece that I already had combed before I finished washing the rest of it, which I left out of the picture.

The problem is, all of my hobbies use my hands in little fiddly ways and I couldn't switch to a different hobby to give my hands a break. so.... well. I'm playing chicken.

For a little variation in movement, maybe you could flick the tips of the fleeces with a flick carder or dog slicker brush for a while, then comb them fully later when you've had some time to recover? That's what I've done to make combing less strength-intensive when I've been working with very inelastic fibers. Breaking it down into two steps seems a little easier on the hands overall.

The brilliant Toni Morrison explained this in an interview of hers (here's another; watch her doc!!!) that there's this assumption that one's readers are white. So when she would purposefully- and there's a difference!- write stories for the Black gaze, that certain things didn't have to be explained because we Understood, it would get frustrating for white readers. They felt left out, unappealed to, hurt.

And yet, that's standard fare- and everyone's not writing such specific stories like Toni! To be "fair", we did understand y'all. We had to. But those same techniques, both in writing and in media consumption, I believe are atrophied from white viewers ("I don't watch this because I don't relate!" Or projection of ones own identity into Black characters to be "relatable") because it's not Socially Required for you to apply them.

Static was WILDLY popular in Brazil (a country where the population is over 50% black) and we had re-runs for YEARS on open television. Everyone who was a kid in the 2000s knew and loved him. As a result, every single Brazilian Con has a LOT of static cosplayers!

So, a couple of years ago, Comic Con Experience (the biggest con in Brazil, which is actually also the biggest con in the world!) invited one of Static’s creator Denys Cowan as one of the guests of honor.

Now. Thousands of people attend his panel. And cosplayers went NUTS because they could show their Static cosplay to the creator himself! What none of us expected was Debts Cowan’s reaction:

He cried on stage.

He had never seen Static cosplayers - especially not so many of them! And he had no idea the show was popular here! No one ever told him his character was so beloved! Years and years of reruns and he had no idea! He obviously created the character with his experiences and his community (Black North Americans) in mind. Still, he accidentally touched a whole other community of black people who could see themselves on the screen as a superhero!

Anyway he is a lovely person and one of the best, most memorable guests we had. And I think this is a nice reminder that your art might touch people you can’t even imagine would when creating it.

so as he went about the party they were hosting, his sub had to be completely cued into him and mindful of his every move. too close and she'd be in his way, too far and she'd damage this beautiful thing he spent so much time to make for her. can you imagine how much attentiveness that would take? how much the person on the other end of the chain would become the center of your focus and everything you do?

1. My original post was talking about the ways I watched my mother get harassed for bringing toddlers to *the grocery store.* Jumping to "omg so you think kids should be allowed in BARS?!" is a hell of a stretch.