Ao3? More like Ao2 (Archive of My Own) which is just my folder of untitled, unedited, and absolutely feral Google Docs I have no intention of sharing with anyone

I find it fascinating that people who choose not to have children are generally assumed to feel really strongly about not having children (or even to feel really strongly against children, anyone’s children, in general). I am probably not going to have children, not because I REALLY REALLY HATE the idea of having children, but because I don’t really really love it. Out of all the major decisions I will make in my life, this one is the only irreversible one. I can sell a house, quit a job, divorce a spouse, whatever. I cannot unhave a child. I cannot opt out of being a parent once I become a parent. I can’t even take a step back for the sake of self-care or whatever, or else my child will suffer.

So for me, having children is fuck yes or not at all. The default will be to remain childfree. Having children should be an opt-in decision, not an opt-out one. Until/unless I develop really strong feelings about wanting to have children, I won’t have them, even if that means I never end up having them at all.

Sometimes you just come across something that puts into words what you have yet been unable to.

Thought I’d share a non covid meme.

Whoever created this meme has zero respect for nihilism and hedonism, and misplaced hatred of the mentally ill, and that’s a damn shame.

Then so do their creators, because Chuck Palahniuk and Justin Roiland have flatly said outright that Tyler Durden and Rick Sanchez are not people to be emulated in any shape or fashion because they *are* the negative aspects of their own lives.

hey here have some alternatives to these jerkfaces

you want a nihilist? you want someone in constant existential despair, who believes everything he does is functionally meaningless?

bam. done

you want neurodivergence? 

he’s worth idolizing

so’s she

so’s he

so’s he

heck, if you want mental illness, this guy canonically has schizophrenia and complex PTSD, and despite his…unique career choices, even he’s better than the Joker:

and you want hedonism? why aren’t you idolizing her?:

what i’m saying is, there are a lot of heroes we could be hanging out with if we could just kick our habit of adoring assholes 

This is the biggest attack on my character I have ever seen

lmaoooo

30 years ago

this post came from 2039

Stop-Motion Moana

“We can rebuild her… We have the technology… We know the way!”

A few months ago I ripped apart a Moana doll and made it into a stop-motion puppet using a kinetic armature kit.  

The walk cycle above was the first thing I animated with this puppet, and was just a throw-away practice test with no green screen. I had never done a walk cycle in stop-motion before and soon discovered how difficult animating a straight-ahead cycle within a localized space with no retakes could be.

I showed the cycle to my dad while he was holding my Moana puppet in his hand and he seemed more impressed with this crappy test than the actual animation I did on the movie! I think the combination of him holding the puppet, and then seeing it come to life on the video before him was what blew him away. I guess that’s the appeal and magic of stop-motion. :)

Here’s a second test I animated for fun:

I read that it’s best to have the foot joints nice and tight to hold the weight of the puppet, and have the arms looser.  It’s amazing how much weight those toe and foot ball-joints could hold for the falling poses:

reblog if u support ROBOMOANA

This question and its answer from The New York Times work advice column is W I L D.

“You’re going to have to gaslight this man.” Holy shit, this ENERGY.

all those ‘say no to drugs’ assemblies in school where WACK i never once had the pot head kids push the Devils Lettuce on me. they’d be like ‘hey u wanna smoke some of this here Blunt of Marajoouana?’ and i’d be like ‘no thanks i dont smoke’ and they’d be like ‘ok cool’ and never bother me about it again

drinkers? NO CHILL AT ALL. even into adulthood people act like i’ve slain their child when i say i am completely sober. like every single time i’ve said no to drinking some person is like ‘what about jello shots there’s barely any in it’ or they’ll leave me a solo cup of wine ‘in case you change your mind’ and when by the end of the night i haven’t had it they’re all ‘you didn’t want any?’ LIKE? YAH I SAID I DIDNT? 

anti drug psa’s are fine but they gotta talk about drinking too bc never once did anyone i know who did drugs push me to do it too but everyone i tell i am sober tries to find a way to get me to drink like i said ‘i am sober but change my mind’ or smth 

So good. It deserved some art. 😊

I'll never forget my first pride.

I can't remember my actual age, but it was in the range of 10 to 13 I think. my parents had dragged me to a Pride festival, and walked across the street from the main event, across where the lines were drawn, to where a sea of people in red shirts that read "god has a better way" tried to drown out the celebration with speakers blasting christian music, and shouting and loud praying.

the leaders pulled all us kids to the side and gave us the spiel. they told us how the rainbow had been stolen from us, and that these people were tricked by the devil and just needed prayer, but that if we didn't save them, they were going to hell.

I rolled my eyes because I already didn't believe in god, and although I barely knew what being gay was, I knew my parents were usually on the Wrong side of things, and I shouldn't be siding with them.

"We aren't allowed over there if we're wearing the red shirts," the leaders told us, "so we're sending people over in secret without them so you can pass out tracts and pray for people. they won't talk to us, but they'll talk to the kids. does anyone want to volunteer?"

the people in red shirts disgusted me. the people on the other side of the line were cheering and having fun. I raised my hand.

we were supposed to go in groups with young adults, to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to be. I wandered off the minute I could and stood nervously at the edge of a crowd, watching on as people went by, happy and unbothered by the protests across the street. I felt a little pride myself in tricking the protestors into giving up a witness spot to me, when I was going to smile on and think profanities at god instead.

there was an older woman standing outside the crowd too. she asked if I was here with anyone, a girlfriend maybe? I said no, my parents were across the street. she nodded, and said she was here with her kid. a daughter, that she came to support, but couldn't keep up with in the crowd.

I almost cried. I told her how amazing that was, because I couldn't imagine my mother showing support like that to me over anything, much less something as serious as Being Gay. I imagined if I was gay, and at a pride event just like now, but this time because I Belong.

I knew automatically that my mother, without a doubt, would still be in the same place, across the street.

I got hungry after a bit, and tried to find a good food truck. I had a little money and I was unused to being on my own like this, but I didn't want to go back to the Other Side. I knew now without a shadow of a doubt, this was the Good side and that was the Bad side.

as I was eating the gyro I got, there was a stream of red shirted protestors trickling through; I had reached the end of the boundaries, and the protestors were allowed in here. I backed up a little, spotting my dad among them. I didn't want him to tell me to go back.

there was a line of women closing ranks around the Pride attendees, separating them from the protesters as they walked through. they spread their arms out and told every person the protesters spoke to that they were not obligated to respond, they could walk away and not engage.

my dad spotted me back, and made a beeline over. he couldn't cross over because a butch lesbian stood between us. I didn't know what those words meant, but I never forgot the buttons she was wearing.

he tried to tell me that it was time to go. "you're not obligated to speak to him," the butch said, cutting him off and edging further between us. I smiled at her, a little in wonderment. no one had ever told me that I didn't have to speak to my parents, or do anything other than blindly obey them. I watched my dad get held behind a line by a woman half his height, with no intention on letting him get to me, and I smiled and walked away.

I didn't have a clue who I was then, and I wouldn't for a good few years to come. but I never forgot the supportive mother, who symbolized to me everything a mother should be, that mine, for all her religious self righteousness, would never hold a candle to. I never forgot that she was the person I wanted to be, and my mother was the person I did not want to be.

I never forgot the butch who stood between me and my dad, and for the first time ever, put the idea in my head that I was ALLOWED to make my own choices in my beliefs, and made me feel protected in a way I hadn't known I needed.

the image of her standing between me and my dad, being a physical barrier to protect me against any potential threat, that inspired the image of who I admired and wanted to become. it inspired the version of me who could stand up to my dad - to the point that I could hold my ground and educate him enough that over a decade later, he walked side by side with me at a pride festival, with no intent of witnessing to or condemning anybody.

pride month may be over, but the impact this month and these events can have is so damn important. I became who I am because of two people I met at a pride festival. I'll never forget.

This is cool but I'd be terrified if someone blocked me from getting to my kid in a parade.

contextually, if a homophobe wants to come drag their kid away from a Pride event back to a homophobic protest across the street, I say let them be fucking scared.

Fam, that's kidnapping

he could have come over to me if he had taken off his homophobic protest shirt but that mattered more than getting to me :)) he chose to let them block him off because of homophobia. and I was sent over in the first place, and was there of my choosing. don't really appreciate you dictating my own past, but here let's be controversial like you're looking for:

homophobes who try to brainwash their children into hatred shouldn't have a right to their children.

man really, in addition to all this: the blockade was specifically intended for protection. butch women stood the fuck up and placed themselves between vulnerable people and hateful people.

enormous amounts of LGBTQ child abuse comes from their family. a large man in a homophobic shirt coming towards a child in a Pride event is ENORMOUS cause for alarm.

there is NO ONE more vulnerable than LGBTQ children. I sure as fuck hope everyone would place the safety of a LGBTQ child over a parent's "claim" to them. be on the right side of the line.

Local Bookstores Have A New Weapon In The Fight With Amazon

In the book industry, Amazon is Goliath, the giant who overshadows everyone else. But there’s a new David on the scene, Bookshop.org.

It doesn’t expect to topple the giant, but it has launched a weapon that could make Amazon’s shadow a little smaller, and help local bookstores fight back.

Bookshop.org, a website that went live at the end of January and is still in beta mode, is designed to be an alternative to Amazon, and to generate income for independent bookstores. And, perhaps more importantly, it seeks to give book reviewers, bloggers and publications who rely on affiliate income from “Buy now” links to Amazon a different option.

Profit from books sold through Bookshop will be split three ways, with 10% of the sale price going into a pool that will be divided among participating bookstores, 10% going to the publication that triggered the sale by linking to Bookshop.org, and 10% going to Bookshop.org to support its operations.

READ MORE

y’all, Bookshop is amazing. i got an email about them from my local indie store, and they’re so excited about it. please oh please use this place instead of Amazon!!

with every purchase, they tell you how much you’re putting toward independent booksellers, which is fun and cute:

it’s also amazing for authors! i’ve been asked a couple times about the best way to support my books. this site is now the answer. it reports sales figures to the NYT and Bookscan, a type of tracking that helps authors hit bestseller lists. and even better, authors can set up affiliate pages, and if you buy through those pages, we get an additional 10 percent of each sale on top of royalties. this is a massive deal!!!

for reference, many royalty rates are in the 6-8 percent range. so if you buy through Bookshop author affiliate pages, authors get more than twice as much from sales of their books, with no additional cost to you.

the site is still in beta, but it also has a fun interface where you can make book lists for favorites or recommendations, sort of like goodreads (except better, because goodreads is owned by amazon).

this is my Bookshop page. if you ever buy one of my books, i pray u will do it from this site! (or from your local indie :D)

in my notifications

I know the American healthcare system is already a joke but this is to funny

I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before but, here ya go… The Different Types of Fanfiction! 

I probably left a few out, but these are the most common, compared to their base fiction’s canon plot. Enjoy! XD

The crack fic is enough for a reblog.

then there are these favs….  ;)

always reblog

Um yes this is genius.