Voltron Nerd at Heart

Eisner.

Lenore from Castlevania Netflix.

yeah. corporations just want our money.

but here’s the thing: once upon a time, they didn’t. they didn’t sell to us. they were just as greedy but we were so beneath them they didn’t want money if it came from us. they asked us to leave the store. they refused to bake cakes for us. they refused to rent or sell us housing. a lot of queer kids were made homeless or DIED because they thought it’d always be that way, that the world would always hate us.

corporations being sluts for our money, and openly showing the homophobes that they prefer our money over theirs, is a GOOD THING and a sign of progress and I will die on that hill.

absolutely support small businesses and indies. but Jesus don’t flat out refuse to give money to a corporation for celebrating pride, because that’s what the homophobes literally want people to do and in this dystopic society you (and I’m dying inside as I say this) NEED corporations on your side because of the sheer scale of their influence. WE NEED THAT INFLUENCE.

Some of it is even more recent. The epidemic of queer children suicides hitting the news? That was last decade. It’d been going on for much longer than that but at one point our fight had progressed enough the media started reporting on it and the suicides even went up for a while, and I was on tumblr when that happened, that’s how recent it is.

So how can I sneer at corporations showing support widely when kids dying used to be normal?

I can’t even fully attribute the motivations corporations rainbowing up their logo as completely for money. There’s probably queer people who put their jobs on the line and fought for the company to DO that.

So whenever I see someone going “UGH the corporations are pandering to us again”?

that’s

that’s a good thing!!!! how is that NOT a good thing???

If a company is rainbowing their logo up but doing homophobic shit behind closed doors, the answer is not for them to stop rainbowing up their logo, but to stop doing the homophobic shit.

Sk8 AU Week Day 1: Roommates AU

Oh boy I kinda went all out for this 😳 some matchablossom for day 1!! I just thought this was a funny idea!

It’s sung to the tune of The Ants Go Marching One By One song!!!

Oh, my god. I’m already crying with asexuality included.

Now you’re telling me other groups feel the same way?

There’s legit tears down my face.

The drag queen is holding a BLM sign.

There’s a Hijabi on the all races float (and if you look closely at the flag, I think the owl is indigenous).

One of the babas is disabled.

They could have just stopped at including all the flags.

But no. They said “I don’t care if they’re animals. I’m going to make it very clear we’re including all races and disabled people.”

And it’s such small details, but they’re there.

And I consider myself pretty versed in queer identities, but even I don’t know what some of these flags are.

Which really shows that you’ve never had the opportunity to feel validated like this, and that makes me love it even more.

Pride, Progress Pride, BLM Progress Pride, Lesbian, Gay Man

Trans, Nonbinary — Dolphin wheelchair user, Top surgery beaver

Gender Queer, Genderfluid, Intersex Demigender, Demiboy, Demigirl, Bisexual, Pansexual, Asexual, Demisexual, Gray Asexual, Aromantic — Blind bird

Bigender, Genderflux, Omnisexual, Neutrois, Maverique, Pangender, Drag — llama(?) with prosthetic leg

and in a KIDS show, like that’s insane, people will finally grow up knowing it’s ok to exist

The original tweet summarizes it pretty well. Fanfic tends to be popular among certain types of neurodivergent people (aka people most likely to read excessively as a child, and have burnout as an adult) for the same reasons that we tend to hyperfixate–neurochemical signaling (I hope I’m using that phrase correctly). What I mean is, for people who are really dependent on changes in dopamine/serotonin/neurotransmitter levels, who have low levels or wonky neural reward systems (perhaps the most common types of neurodivergence)…people like us rely on dependable external sources of those neurochemicals. In order to function, we spend a lot of our free time trying to level out our brain chemistry using things that can reliably bring us a steady stream of joyful moments (rewards) without costing too much of the mental effort that is already in short supply. 

significantly: the investment of reading has to be balanced with a steady “return on investment”–and this return has to start fairly quickly. because again, we don’t have a lot of attention/energy to invest on tiring things. we have perpetual “low batteries” in that regard.

that doesn’t mean these stories are “simple,” or that they lack complexity or value–only that the reward has to come in short regular intervals, and it has to have a low “upfront cost.” which is why fanfic stories are so perfectly formulated for neurodivergent readers–they are often beautifully written, but skip a lot of the upfront costs (of introducing new characters, of world-building, of getting the audience emotionally connected to the story elements).

the nature of fanfiction is that the reader has a pre-existing relationship with this world and these characters. that–combined with the shorter average length of fics–means that fan fics very quickly start “rewarding” the reader in a way that traditional fiction struggles to. that’s not a bad thing! and maybe it’s something more traditionally published writers should be paying attention to.

you’re right and you should say it (out loud)

Not only do we consistently have and consume vegetables, we have regional and seasonal vegetable dishes and sides.

We absolutely do have traditional dishes that are specific to the regions and cultures found throughout the United States and the varying ethnic groups found therein. We are not children floundering around in the kitchen. We have entire unique regional and cultural divisions of food all over the US that have been passed down and worked on for generations.

America is one of the most food diverse countries on the planet largely due to the massive variety of food profiles and cooking techniques melded together over the years.

The southern United States alone is a culinary banquet of flavors, colors, techniques, and food history. Each southern state has its own way of preparing soul food that is specific to the spices and culture of the black people living there. Louisiana is internationally known for its soul food. Tennesse is internationally known for its soul food. Kentucky is internationally known for its soul food. Texas is internationally known for its barbecue.

Did you know that Within the United States we have like 20 different types of barbecue and that, in the south (the real south not Texas), barbecue is not a verb? It’s a noun. It’s literally it’s own type of food that is incredibly regionally specific? It’s literally different all over and we all fight over who has the best (it’s SC).

Thousands of cookbooks have been made to try and cover the variations in soul food alone. Like we haven’t even begin to talk about other cultural influences in American food outside of the south.