olli | she/it | aroace flavored queer

No destination.

“Oh what a good post, I should reblog it,” I say seconds before noticing it was reblogged from me.

You again?

Authors totally write back when you write them fanmail.

-An author

can we talk about how being so pants-shittingly terrified of Doing A Racism you freeze up or Get Weird around anyone a shade darker than the sugar in your cupboard or with an accent is effectively the same as being scared of brown people and doesn't make you much better than Sandra Lilly Smith from the suburbs who clings her purse when a black guy gets on the elevator with her

It also, generally, makes you much less safe to actually confront when you do inevitably fuck up and do some kind of racism, such as being scared of being around PoC for the above reasons. Because you're so wound up and tense that it becomes this Big Catastrophic Failure and your Worst Fears Realized, which immediately takes the conversation away from the racism and instead collapses it around your feelings as the offender.

This is an example of an intersection of white fragility with white guilt, both of which are ways in which white people deflect the responsibility of examining their own racist biases or actions by weaponizing their feelings to keep the conversation about them and their feelings, either by getting defensive about accusations of racism or imploding with self-flagellation and guilt for being Such A Terrible Person.

The thing about being raised white in the US, europe, and canada, is that the society you grew up in will inevitably instill subconscious racist biases in you, directly or indirectly. Even the most leftist white spaces are rife with racist tendencies, many of which stem from absences, rather than overt presence of denegrating opinions of PoC. Like ignorance to the breadth and nature of the struggles of BIPoC, the nuances of systemic racism, where assumptions of equal opportunity and saftey in a given scenario break down.

If you want to actually be an effective anti-racist, it needs to be easy and safe to tell you "hey, that was racist" without you imploding, exploding, getting defensive, or centering your guilt. Don't make it a bigger deal than the person approaching you has made it, keep the apology short and sweet, and keep the load off of whoever aproached you to correct your error; that is your responsibility to fix and your responsibility to manage your emotions about, not the victim of your racist behavior.

Like all things in life, you need to be willing to make a little bit of an ass of yourself if you want to get better. You need to get comfortable being wrong, being the bad guy. Because sooner or later, you will be, and you can't let it be the end of the world. Because it never is, but treating it like one forces everyone else to save you from whatever personal apocalypse you've spun up over it. And when you've fucked up or hurt someone, it is always the wrong time to make yourself need rescue first.

You can come back from a faux pas, even a Racist one. You just need to chill the fuck out and listen.

"Oh yeah? Okay, I'll work on that," is a million times better than either groveling apology or explosive denial.

The Veil.

No "other" option, pick from these.

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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

Specifically Prehensile Tail.

Because neither 'trunk' nor 'extra limbs' was an option.

I just want more hands, ok?

this is my favorite poll ever

If you aren't following the news here in the Pacific Northwest, this is a very, very big deal. Our native salmon numbers have been plummeting over the past century and change. First it was due to overfishing by commercial canneries, then the dams went in and slowed the rivers down and blocked the salmons' migratory paths. More recently climate change is warming the water even more than the slower river flows have, and salmon can easily die of overheating in temperatures we would consider comfortable.

Removing the dams will allow the Klamath River and its tributaries to return to their natural states, making them more hospitable to salmon and other native wildlife (the reservoirs created by the dams were full of non-native fish stocked there over the years.) Not only will this help the salmon thrive, but it makes the entire ecosystem in the region more resilient. The nutrients that salmon bring back from their years in the ocean, stored within their flesh and bones, works its way through the surrounding forest and can be traced in plants several miles from the river.

This is also a victory for the Yurok, Karuk, and other indigenous people who have relied on the Klamath for many generations. The salmon aren't just a crucial source of food, but also deeply ingrained in indigenous cultures. It's a small step toward righting one of the many wrongs that indigenous people in the Americas have suffered for centuries.

I've kept an eye on the conservation work the Yurok tribe in particular does because of their condor reintroduction- it's incredible. It breaks my heart that it falls on them to be the advocates for their own land, but it really has been amazing.

Heathy, rich salmon runs in California? That would be a complete game changer. This is incredible news.

Disclaimer these are just a small sampling of some possible writer traits I’ve noticed either in myself or in fics I read. Also consider a rb for sample size !

Earth & Wear by Nicki

VoteBlues will literally

A. Tell you that democracy in this country is completely broken and

B. Insist that's why you need to vote for the guy who is killing your family.

Like do these fuckers hear themselves. How can you tell someone who has personally lost loved ones to this genocide that they should still vote for the guy who's doing it.

I can fathom why someone would see that Biden is committing genocide and still believe that voting for him is the least worst option.

I don't agree with it, and this far in, I don't respect it, either, but I can see a kind of logic in it.

But how indifferent to others' suffering do you have to be to literally learn that someone has had family members killed by Biden's genocide support, and your only response to that person is to tell them Trump is worse?

The sequel