notthatkindofgrass

[notthatkindofgrass]

[notthatkindofgrass]

No lilacs here yet, but I do think of this book each year when they do appear here

All the little angels rise up, rise up. All the little angels rise up high! How do they rise up, rise up, rise up? How do they rise up, rise up high? They rise heads up, heads up, heads up, they rise heads up, heads up high!

GNU Terry Pratchett on this Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May.

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I love this for him so much 💜

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So my family has a Gay Pirate Plate.

Stay with me.

We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.

I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.

It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.

(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)

Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.

My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.

When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.

We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.

Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.

The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.

I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.

Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”

Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.

But he’s trying to get me and my sister out to visit him. And plate mounts are cheap.

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In economics we divide the population into income quintiles -- top 20%, bottom 20%, etc

The Biden Economy has been very, very good to the bottom 20% -- I know because I am in that quintile and under the Biden Presidency I have seen multiple SNAP increases, the best COLA adjustments for Social Security in four decades, Medicare now pays my utilities, and because I'm part of the Affordable Connectivity Program, they can now never turn off my internet even if I can't afford to pay the bill.

The problem with the poorest people being the one who benefits the most? Is that it doesn't resonate as a media story. The media is not catering to that bottom quintile -- we don't have the expendable income their advertisers are seeking.

But if you want to elect a POTUS who is honestly helping the people who need it the most, you should be an enthusiastic Biden supporter. It won't make splashy news headlines, you're not even going to find MSNBC going GUESS WHAT THE POORS ARE DOING BETTER all the time because it's really not a sexy story. But it's a real story. A true story.

I'm just really sick of the pseudo-leftist takes that characterize Biden and the Democrats as 'conservative' or assertions that they don't have policy platforms except 'we're not the Republicans.' Such commentary sounds intelligent but only in the way Libertarian commentary sounds intelligent: you have to not think critically at all to some to such absurd conclusions. Democrats are working within a broken system and doing the best they can. You wanna fix the system? Great, I'm onboard, but smearing the only people trying to help is not going to get you anywhere.

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I love it here!

I’m pulling out pom poms and cheering everyone on!

i wrote a bunch of old fic ideas last year in a cipher i can't read anymore help fuck what do these say

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Yes!! This! The only thing worse is that I know people who still use Pinterest and can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t

live, laugh, love it!!

i will fucking kill pinterest

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Hello, computer.

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I actually like that Strange New Worlds isn't all that precious with Spock. I think legacy can be a prison when it comes to shows like this and it's the better in the long run to say, "Yes, this is one of the most famous fictional characters of all time but more importantly he's a character on this show and we're going to give ourselves the latitude to write stories about him just like any other character."

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La'an being like "I feel music bubbling up inside me, I will immediately go into my room and not come out until it has been expelled." and then immediately going to Pike to tell him the concerning news, then when Pike's having his spat with Batel being the one who has to get up to turn off the signal. My sweet, emotionally repressed girl is like "RED ALERT. EMOTIONS ARE HAPPENING. Shut it all down!!!"

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My and my friends are over here saying Pike is obviously bait because he’s just ridiculously (uncanny valley levels) good looking… and ya’ll are over there calling him “dad” making us feel every bit of our age.

Also, am I the only one who doesn’t think Archer was a dweeb?? Do I need a rewatch? Maybe I was running on fumes from Quantum Leap.

Star Trek TOS: what if the captain was a slut who got in fights all the time and did whatever the hell he wanted and it all sort of worked out anyway

TNG: what if the captain drank tea and gave speeches instead

DS9: what if the captain was a single father and religious figure trying to hold onto his morals in the face of an existential threat

Voyager: what if the captain was trying to get her unruly scout troop back home and also she had a GUN

Enterprise: what if the captain was a massive dweeb

Kelvin timeline: what if the first guy was actually a horny frat boy

Disco: what if the captain was a cryptofascist? no wait, what if he was just sooooooo handsome, like so mind-meltingly handsome that is just feels unfair? wait, what if he was a deer? no actually what if she did whatever the hell she wanted, but also felt emotions about it?

Picard: what if the captain was a secondary character driven into solitude by his PTSD, and then we suddenly replaced him with some dipshit from Chicago

Lower Decks: what if the captain was your well-meaning perfectionist mother

Prodigy: what if the captain was a purple teenager

SNW: what if the captain was your dad

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I don’t remember writing this, but this is absolutely something I would say. I am never sure if it’s less scary to learn that I am not alone in some (in this case many) of my “quirks” or a lot more scary to know there’s more than one person out here being like this.

Allow me to add, and it’s really f-ing annoying to have people with whom I am very close and who know that I am this way still not believe me when I know thingsTM.

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The REAL plot hole of SNW S2E7 “Those Old Scientists” is that neither Boimler nor Mariner freaked the fuck out when they heard La’an’s last name

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OK yes making the klingons do a boy band style dance number was a funny surprise and everything but I am severely disappointed we didn't get any klingon opera

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Took a year to complete this quilt! Pattern is by NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg called Cupola View. Fabrics used were also designed by Karen, the collection is called Earth Views.