moved

*realizes nobody cares*

I’ve been asked many times what someone should look for when trying to find a good artist. The best way you can do this is to look at their portfolio, whether it’s in a book at their shop or online. If they don’t have good work in their portfolio, they’re probably not good artists.

The shop may be clean, the people there might be nice, and the design they draw up for you might be exactly what you want, but if your artist doesn’t stand up to the points listed above, then you’re going to get a bad tattoo.

I feel like much of the world is in a social war over what gender is and is not.

I don’t feel that its my place to tell someone else what gender is. I believe that gender identity is something that an individual has to figure out for themselves. That being said, based on my personal experience with understanding my own gender identity, I can tell you what gender is not.

Gender is not the same as your sexuality. Gender does not have to define your sexuality. Gender and sexuality are two different subjects.

Gender has nothing to do with your genitalia. Gender is not defined by a doctor, despite what’s on your birth certificate. Gender identity is more of spectrum of variable options, instead of a binary with only two options.

Gender Identity & Gender Expression are not the same thing. Gender identity is part of the mental and emotional understanding of yourself. Gender expression is your style, how you’re most comfortable presenting to the outside world.

It is my belief that somewhere through out history, things like gender identity, gender expression, genitalia & sexuality somehow got all wrapped up into one single category called gender. However, it is also my belief that the people in this world are changing. Growing into a much more colorful way of thinking and understanding.

I hope the day will come when the majority will know gender to be a personal understanding of ones self, instead of an outward understanding of everyone else.

No for real in 2k15

Can fandom bring back the concept of a squick

A “squick” was a trope or topic that made the reader deeply uncomfortable, even might cause anxiety or intense emotional reactions

Everyone’s squicks were personal and diverse, and it was considered polite to say, “sorry I can’t read this because it squicks me, but you have fun in your corner doing what you doing”

Key to the concept of “squick,” as it was first explained to me lo these many years ago, is that it is not a value judgment.  If I say “mpreg is gross,” that’s a negative statement about mpreg (and, by extension, about those who enjoy writing or reading about it).  If I say “mpreg squicks me,” that’s a value-neutral statement about me and my emotional reactions and how they affect my enjoyment of fiction.

squick: Something that makes you go “ewwww” and wish you had never seen/read it. Something that makes you deeply uncomfortable. Something you’re not interested in reading/seeing/thinking about, ever.

trigger: Something that you associate with/reminds you of a past trauma (mental, emotional, or physical) and therefore triggers your personal reaction to trauma (be it flashbacks, panic/anxiety attacks, unhealthy behaviours, a crying jag, whatever).

so a traditional set up for a ceremony would look like this, with the audience lined up in front of the couple, and divided in the middle to make a path for the bride to come down and be given away by her father to the groom

instead, i propose (ohhh puns) a set up more like this:

where the audience is on either side (which halves the distance that the farthest person is from the action) and at the same time you can have each half of the couple come down aisles on opposite sides and both be given away by their parents to each other (which takes away all the gross sexist and hetero-normative crap)

ghost detection

no one here knows you but they all hate you