What's left? Me.

Bc so many ppl focus on the idea of telling A Trusted Adult, but even a well-meaning individual can fuck up and let abuse fall through the cracks or not know what to do

Whereas if a child tells LOADS of adults AND other kids, there's far less opportunity for an abuser to do damage control

Consistently telling their story and spreading it around disempowers the abuser to control and coerce the flow of information, or to utilise gaps and weaknesses in systems of reporting or welfare to isolate the child

At times, Gatwa’s casting in those projects has been dismissed as an exercise in ‘box-ticking’. Gatwa scoffs. ‘First of all, you don’t know anything about me. Secondly, tick fcking boxes! People need to be fcking seen. What are you going to do, tell the same stories? Have the same people fronting things for all of eternity? Representation and inclusivity and branching out… it enriches us all. How embarrassing. You people with your tiny mindsets – open a book, look out the window and then f*ck off.’ (source)

What do I mean by the Third Argument? Well, I'm not sure I've ever made a post about this directly, but as far as I can see it, there are three main arguments for greater diversity in popular media. The first two are the most common, and they go like this:

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see people like them on screen. That is, the beneficiaries are marginalized people.

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see and learn about people who are not like them through art. That is, the beneficiaries are non-marginalized people, who then (hopefully) pass on the benefit by treating marginalized people better.

These two arguments are the source of a lot of debate here on ye olde tumblr. Despite both being arguments for representation, they pull in different directions. What counts as 'good' representation for the purposes of Argument 1 often would not be good for the purposes of Argument 2, and vice versa. Authentic versus sympathetic. Ugly or over-sanitized. You see this debate play out constantly. It's really hard for a piece of - say - queer media to do both at once.

But these debates tend to leave out Argument 3, the one that Gatwa is making above. And that argument cuts through a lot of this debate.

3. It is good for media to be diverse because art needs variety. The beneficiary of representation is art itself, absent any social effects that may or may not be present.

For this argument, diverse stories are intrinsically good. It is good to make art that's not just the same thing you've seen a hundred times before. Putting the kinds of people who don't often make it into mainstream media into your art is an extremely efficient way to make that happen. It's not the only method, but it's a really good method.

For representation to be 'good representation' according to Argument 3, all it needs to be is interesting. A story you haven't heard before, at least not in that medium. That which counts as 'bad representation' by the lights of this argument are stock characters, like the Eternally Patient Mother, the Gay Best Friend, the Wise Black Advisor. Perhaps there was a time in which these characters were new, but that time has long passed. There's no art in pulling a bog-standard character trope off the shelf. Show us a new kind of guy. The world is infinitely diverse. You're not going to run out. Telling the same stories with the same voices for all eternity, as Gatwa says, is boring. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, this would be. Art isn't supposed to be boring.

1990 house in Waitsfield, VT was designed and built by Yestermorrow founder John Connell. It's supposed to be "creative, whimsical, but also highly efficient and exciting." 2bds, 2ba, 1,594sqft, $495k.

blue is the bridge, green is the landing of the stairs!

I thought I could never care for anyone again, until I met you.

Drone incursions are becoming more and more of an issue when it comes to wildfires, so last year I designed these graphics, but I never got around to sharing them anywhere.

If you send your drone up during a wildfire, even if you don't feel like you are that close, all planes and helicopters in the area may have to be grounded which can have a massive and detrimental effect on first responders' ability to manage that fire.

If you send your drone up and a plane or helicopter hits it, no matter how small your drone is, it could crash that aircraft injuring or killing those on board and potentially people on the ground as well. Even if the aircraft stays up, it will have damage that could ground it for an indeterminate and potentially extensive amount of time, meaning one less resource is available for that fire and other fires.

Just don't do it.

These graphics are free to use and distribute for any non-profit uses! You can check out my Payhip store to download (for free, or pay what you want) a package of files that include vertical versions of each design, print sizes, and social media sizes.

Over 90% of parents of visibly intersex children opt for cosmetic surgery on their infants.

The ones that don't experience medical violence then, likely experience it as a teenager.

I didn't.

I am very rare in that I did not experience medical violence.

Why? Because I learned what intersexuality was as a young age, and I actively fought against what doctors wanted to do to me. All the way down to legal research on what medical care minors can be forced into. I remember walking into that doctor's appointment with the state law written down that proved that if I did not consent they could not do surgery.