Snail Cat

I'm really kerfuzzled today. Here's the breakdown of why:

Any company has the right to refuse to host or sell your book, music, podcast, blog or whatever. They should have this right. It is an important right. Nobody should host any material that they don't see as fitting for their business or image.

But what happens when there are only three companies and they all subscribe to the same ideology and all have agendas of spreading their own message and nothing else? That leads to things getting censored, not by becoming stricken from libraries and hosting sites, but never being approved by any of them at all. And when somebody starts their own company to host these refused messages, the company itself is struck down by the monopolies. We all remember Parler.

We all know the world we are rocketing closer to. Someday soon, I won't be able to make this post and you won't be able to read it.

Wake up babe new fish dropped

Oh wow there’s a LOT of sewing & historical costuming content coming up this week! (July 30th-August 2nd, 2020)

Costume College, an annual convention focused on historical clothing, has obviously had to be cancelled, so people are doing a lot of livestream panels and putting up various tutorials and stuff online instead.

good morning cruel world

i knew the state of society’s view of children was bad but i didn’t realize just how dire the situation was was until the lockdown began. this last month or so has really opened my eyes to how much people dislike children, even their own children, simply because they exist and they need them because you know… they’re small humans without the capacity to care for themselves.  it seems harmless but memes talking about how parents need alcohol to deal with their kids or can’t wait for their kids to go back to school so someone else can deal with them does harm in that it dehumanizes children and puts blame on the children for existing when it’s not the child’s fault they were brought into the world. it also brings about another uncomfortable fact: if you don’t like the way your children behave, barring them having a behavioral disorder or disability, you’re probably to blame and need to reevaluate how you’re raising them. children are more than innocent bystanders… they are helpless and absolutely reliant on the adults around them to not only provide for them, but to show them love which in turn sets the precedent for how they will love in the future. this attitude implying they asked to be here and that it’s okay to joke about how annoying they are has got to stop. 

I never hear people saying "manic pixie girlfriend" as a compliment to a piece of fiction... What is it you like about that trope? 👀👀👀

girls being girls unapologetically!!!

thanks for asking bc this was a LOT of fun to think about and answer and it ran kinda long but uh THERE’S A LOT TO COVER.

like, yea, ok, there’s a legitimate literary complaint to be made when women are used repeatedly as a vehicle for a man’s exposure to a more exciting life, but actually, the complaint isn’t ‘this woman doesn’t have autonomy’, but more like...Well. the quote at the top of the tv tropes is just about perfect.

(not to mention, no trope in and of itself is bad - its the execution and overuse of tropes that can be bad. so even the actual ‘give women more autonomy instead of making her a plot element for a dude’ complaint is only partially valid. and sometimes its just straight up to personal taste! one person likes oranges, one person likes apples. so they eat different pies. that’s just fine. doesn’t make one objectively worse.)

it’s that whole ‘leave white girls alone about pumpkin spice’ thing, like, sometimes people can just like things and have personality traits. 

let girls be manic! let them like polka dots! let them wear tutus over jeans, paint their nails different colors, and wear glitter every day! let them mix combat boots with floofy skirts! let them wear double pony tails!

let girls be naive, let girls be childish, let girls be dreamers! and u know what!! let them pull other people into their dreams, laughing and singing and dancing and being so unapologetically full of the gift from God that is life that they show others what a wonder it is to be alive!!!

there is nothing wrong with being so wonderfully manic that you make those around you a little less lethargic. 

or - sometimes it can be wrong, and that’s a great set up for what motivates stories: conflict! what happens when your extrovert girlfriend wants to go to a different event every night and you, the tired introvert boyfriend, just wants to sit in and watch a movie with her? how do you compromise and fulfill each other’s needs? is it even possible? is it worth it? what happens when the adventure that manic pixie girl drags the boy into isn’t what the boy wants, or is more than the boy can take, or is only fun when the girl is there and apart from her isn’t worth it? what happens when she annoys her best friend because she blows glitter all over the room? what happens when she drops off the face of the earth for a month and misses school? 

explore the trope!! don’t write it off, don’t never eat a pumpkin spice latte because people make fun of white girls for liking pumpkin spice lattes. pumpkin spice lattes are great. 

for an example of a FANTASTIC manic pixie dream girl with excellent conflicts, look at pinkie pie from mlp:fim. like, literally. she’s off the walls energetic and drags everyone into her shenanigans and its WONDERFUL!!! she breaks into twilight’s home to throw her a welcome to town party on the day they meet! first episode and she’s already trying to cram twi into a brighter lifestyle! absolutely iconic. there are times when she’s obnoxious and upsets those around her with her mindless, manic energy, and there are times when her unending optimism and bright personality save the day. she’s given serious moments, sad moments, and determined moments, and all of these are just strengthened by her manic pixie girl personality. (i do think she’s not recognized as a manic pixie girl because she doesn’t have a romantic interest, but aside from not dragging her boyfriend or a local sadboi into stuff...she’s a manic pixie dreamgirl.)

Also, tons of respect to the guy who originally coined the term:

Rabin would later disown the term, because instead of creating awareness of the "lack of independent goals in female characters", the concept was misunderstood as a condemnation of ALL quirky and fun female characters.

IN CONCLUSION.

manic pixie dream girls get written off because sometimes they’re just used as vehicles for the male protag, and sometimes just because they’re a bundle of girlilsh traits that aren’t appealing to certain people, and sometimes because their blindingly bright outlook is seen as bad and/or unrealistic.

and that’s a crying shame.

I like pumpkin spice lattes, I like glitter, I like characters that are so ridiculously over the top energetic and bright that that rubs off on their friends, and I’m going to write so many fun, quirky girls who are unapologetic about their ‘girly’ traits and encourage those around them to Live. :D

the thing about “well-behaved women rarely make history" is that the author, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, didn’t write it about women who would be considered “badly-behaved;“ she wrote it in a book about a midwife, about women who had been largely ignored and erased from history because as a result of their “good behaviour.” So it’s not a “BAD GIRLS DO IT WELL" kind of quote; it’s a reminder to respect and pay attention to the women who go about quietly living their lives.

Little red octopus playing hide and sea-k

We're no suckers—there's an octopus in this video somewhere! Red octopuses (Octopus rubescens) are one of the more common cephalopods on nearshore reefs here in the Monterey Bay. Living around two years and getting to be about the size of your fist on average, they're a calamity to clams, crabs and other small critters—while also being a preferred snack for seals and larger predatory fishes like lingcod. To hide from preying eyes, red octopuses use their squishiness and extraordinary camouflaging abilities to sneak about on the reef hidden in plain sight. "Now you sea me, now you don't!"

Men are not bad. Even if they're cis, het, white, abled, christian, and whatever other privileged identity that can be applied. Men can be bad, but badness is not a male trait. It is not inherent nor exclusive to men. There are amazing men. There are horrible women. No characteristics are inherent to any gender. It is okay, wonderful even, to be a man. Just like it is with any other gender.