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I say this with love. Do not cite the old magic to me, friend. I was there when it was written.

I appreciate this ... acceptance? It's nice to be acceptable.

But I feel obligated to point out that I've been posting on this hellsite (affectionate) since at least 2008.

I don't know what this invasion is, but I am not part of it. I've been here so long, I'm part of the furniture.

I'm not going to play the Elder card, but I am going to tap the sign.

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They Have AO3?!?

So apparently AO3 is cannonical to the DC universe, in which it is called Tales of our own or TO3!

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Your opinion on Nicholas Sparks?

My nemesis, my beloathed, with whom I claim a blood feud that will not end until one of us perishes.

(He is not aware of this. If you're new around here and want more detail on my dislike of this man and his oeuvre, I invite you to check the tag on this post.)

I loathe him for many reasons, of course. Some of them are boring, I don't want to dwell tonight on the Big Serious Stuff. I want to dwell on the heart of this feud.

I have especial disdain for anyone who thinks they're above their audience, is the thing. For showrunners who think their fans' theories are stupid, for authors who say they're not REALLY writing this commercial genre but a more worthy version thereof.

And Nicholas Sparks? Nicholas Sparks, who has made awe-inspiring amounts of money off the romance-reading community while completely disdaining them? (Because while I hate his tragic tear-jerker shit as a happy-ending romance reader, I acknowledge that it's all a part of the same umbrella.) Who refuses over and over to say he writes romances because what he writes is so much deeper than that, because tragedy is so much deeper than happiness?

Yeah, I can't respect him for any of that. If he doesn't want to write happy ending romances he doesn't have to. I think his stories are cheesy but I get that people like them, hell, I watched A Walk To Remember multiple times in high school (though that might have been because I was obsessed with "Only Hope" a little bit). What little I've read of his prose doesn't seem good, but, again, I read plenty of things with fairly poor prose and enjoy them if they're good stories.

He's uninteresting and uninterested, he clearly wants to be seen as writing about The Human Condition but is only interested in a tiny and very predictable slice of humanity. He disdains his readership and claims he's making literature when everything I hear points to him only being in it for money.

He is everything as a writer I hope never to be!

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Cody: This year, I lost my dear husband Obi-Wan in the war.

Obi-Wan: Quit telling everyone I’m dead!

Cody: Cyare, please shut up, I’m trying to fool my inhibitor chip!

Cody *sighs*: Sometimes I can still hear his voice

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chimney swifts are so weirddd theyre like if birds decided to be bats.

thats bats. those are bats. to me

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Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso (3.06)

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I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

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Let the story of Oscar Wilde inspire you to learn more about abolition.

Let the story of Victoria Arellano inspire you to call a congressperson about abolishing ICE

Let the story of Holly Woodlawn inspire you to hire queer people and pay them well.

Let the story of Dwayne Jones inspire you to donate to the first human rights organization in the history of Jamaica to serve the needs of LGBT peoples.

Let the story of Lou Sullivan inspire you to question and challenge the continued transphobia in our medical systems.

Let the story of Frieda Belinfante inspire you to fundraise for Rainbow Railroad.

Let the story of Marsha P. Johnson inspire you to support Black trans people now.

Let the story of Claude Cahun inspire you to make and distribute anti-fascist zines in your area.

Let the story of Amrita Sher-Gil inspire you to support safe and legal abortions in your country.

Let the story of Magnus Hirschfeld inspire you to do queer work in your field of interest.

Let the story of Rita Hester inspire you to attend the nearest TDOR event.

Queer history isn't just about learning, sometimes, it's a call to action. A reminder that no matter the time period, solidarity, community, and creation are the ways progress happens. Queer history is intersectional, inspirational, and integral to our continued existence. Learn it, and let it move you.

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Some good things happening at the local level: Land Back edition

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians purchased back 2,000 acres of deeply historically significant land in Oregon, the site of both a massacre of Native people at the hands of the US army, and the site of a treaty signing that established a temporary truce and reservation. (Posted Jan 21, 2025)

The property was purchased directly from the previous landowner. The Nature Conservancy preserves a conservation easement on the land. The Siletz will continue to work closely with the Nature Conservancy and the BLM across the properties in the region to emphasize conservation and restoration. “To me, land back means, in its purest form, its return of lands to a tribe,” Kentta [citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the tribal council treasurer] said. “This is through purchase, and a significant amount paid out for the purchase. So for us, that is regaining of land back, but it's not a settlement or apology for things that happened in the past.”

The Tule River Tribe in California is moving forward with a plan to buy back 14,673 acres of rivers, forests, ranchland, and wetland in a conservation project partnering with The Conservation Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and various California conservation organizations. It's set to move into Tule River control (or at least co-management? unclear to me) sometime this year. (Posted January 8, updated January 10, 2025)

Charmaine McDarment, chairwoman of the Tule River Tribal Council, said in a press release that the tribe appreciates help in restoring ancestral homelands. “As the climate crisis brings new pressures to address the effects of environmental mismanagement and resource degradation, the Tribe’s partnership with WCB is an important example of building relationships based in collaboration and trust. “The tribe remains committed to supporting co-stewardship efforts and fighting to ensure that disproportionate harms to Native American lands, culture, and resources are resolved in a manner that centers and honors Native American connections to ancestral lands.”

Illinois lawmakers voted to move Shabbona Lake State Park to the management of The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.  The Illinois governor has a lot on his plate right now, but is expected to sign the bill into law. (Posted January 14, 2025)

The state House approved SB 867, which would transfer Shabbona Lake State Park to the Prairie Band Potawatomi. The bill now heads to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for his signature.  The land transfer hinges on an agreement that the tribe continue to operate the property as a park, still open to the public. Final details will be established in a forthcoming land management agreement between the state and tribe.  Prairie Band Potawatomi Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick said the bill’s passage was a “meaningful step” toward righting a historic old wrong. The land was originally part of the tribe's 1,280-acre reservation in northern Illinois. During Chief Shab-eh-nay's visit to family in Kansas, the land was unlawfully auctioned off, violating federal requirements for Congressional approval of tribal land sales. The tribe has sought to reclaim the land for nearly two centuries.

A Wabanaki food sovereignty group secured a no-strings-attached land deal to buy 245 acres of farm and forest in Maine, to focus on local, traditional, and sustainable foods. (Posted January 19, 2025)

What sets this purchase apart is that the land transfer comes without conservation easements. These easements, which frequently accompany land returns or transfers, are often well-meaning. However, they can inhibit Indigenous stewardship by preventing practices such as prescribed burning, subdivision, or particular kinds of zoning for buildings or infrastructure.  A coalition of 12 organizations and several private donors helped secure the land for Niweskok [a nonprofit collective of Wabanaki farmers, health professionals, and educators] without easements, giving the Wabanaki nonprofit sovereignty over the property, according to Heather Rogers, Land Protection Program director for Coastal Mountain Land Trust. Her organization has helped finance the Goose River purchase through fundraising and advocacy efforts.  “The land trusts had to approach it with humility - there are other ways to care for land that can end up with better outcomes, and I think we have all come to that realization,” Rogers said. “I think now that we've done it once, I think we would be open to doing it again that way.” 

Conservation, food sovereignty, water management - a few hundred acres here, a thousand acres there, there is movement to put lands back in tribal control, which is a human rights win as well as an ecology/conservation one.  This is mostly happening at state and even private levels, and is something to continue advocating for, pushing for, donating to, and finding out if you have any local movements advocating for this kind of thing near you and calling state-level lawmakers and representatives about.

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what a beautiful day to remember that trans people of color exist and deserve better

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DeSantis was so excited to act on Trump's blitzkrieg EOs that he asked the Florida legislature to meet early (they're scheduled to meet in March), they rejected him, so he called - without prior notice! - an emergency session, forcing them to come into town early to vote on bills that haven't even been written yet. Because DeSantis doesn't wanna wait until March. Well, the legislature met today, as DeSantis demanded.

And they told him to fuck off.

This is amazing, I love it.

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This Black History Month, reflect for a moment on the fact that George Washington Carver, famously "the inventor of peanut butter and more than 100 industrial uses for peanuts" wasn't, like, Doc Brown fucking around in his garage because he really liked peanuts but was specifically trying to introduce larger use of a nitrogen fixing legume into crop rotations against cotton monoculture which was destroying yields, livelihoods and the biosphere, and how most agribusiness farming now just destroys that topsoil on purpose and continues to grow a cotton monoculture (or soy or corn or whichever local monoculture is profitable) using petrochemical derived fertilizer, which is one element driving climate change

Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful heart surgery. He also founded the first nonsegregated hospital in America because he was keenly aware of disparate health outcomes by race which is still a problem today.

WEB Dubois was a part of the delegations for the birth of the UN. His proposal to include in the charter that "the colonial system of government … is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars" was not adapted for the final draft. We might see inaction against colonial violence to this day as part of the failure of others to heed his warnings there.

I feel like so often when we look at Black History Month so much of it is driven by factoids but when taken as history in context its about a direct line from decades and centuries to what is happening right now.

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The Blues Brothers (1980)