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Good Trouble Lives On

Nationwide protests on July 17

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Bummed you couldn't make it to No Kings? Made it and wanna go again? Just wanna ruin Trump's day?

JULY 17 IS GOOD TROUBLE LIVES ON!!!

Yup, another chance to take to the streets, exercise our first amendment rights to peaceful assembly, and tell Trump and his enablers that he needs to sit his ass down.

Here's the website with the map of planned protests. This was only announced June 17, so if there aren't any near you, come back later, and see what new options have populated. And remember: try to avoid actually rsvp-ing, and if you must, put in fake information.

Please boost!!

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Queer 👏 people 👏 are 👏 not 👏 all 👏 fucking 👏 activists 👏

Stop quizzing us on queer history and asking us questions we aren’t qualified to answer about the world and about politics and about our identities

Stop trying to back us into a corner so you can justify your discrimination on the basis that we don’t know what we’re talking about or can’t “defend” ourselves to you

Stop treating every queer person that stands up and says “I want to be treated like a person” as if they’re an activist

Cut that bullshit out

Marginalised people just want to exist and be happy

I don’t know everything, and that doesn’t make me undeserving of your respect or my human rights you fucker

I don’t even owe you the stuff I do know- I still am entitled to basic fucking respect

TLDR; Queer people shouldn’t have to be historians or scientists for you to not be a fucking dick

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From a project I was working on before going in another direction, but still wanted to post this. Inspired by this photo of mourning doves nesting in the fossil of a triceratops, and how it tells us that the world can end, just not forever.

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Also autistic here, and wanted to hop in and add some more onto what Sparrow was saying, hope that's alright. Note that while I say "do x, do y" this is very much an exploration of how I would approach this challenge and not at all prescriptive.

I think something that might help is asking yourself (and then jotting down what you come up with so you can return to it later) why you want to write an autistic character. Not why should they be written in general, but what makes you personally excited about the idea? Certain traits you don't see enough of? Self insert to experience a certain type of world? A handful of hyperspecific interactions? An exploration of how a particularly rough or particularly caring early upbringing would impact their psyche now? Something else?

At this stage, don't be afraid to have a "cringe" answer. If you're gonna have fun with the project, you gotta be honest about what's exciting to you. (Also cringe is dead so, you know, there's that).

Once you have that, you're gonna want to have a basic outline of what kind of world you're interested in, and the genre (ie, fantasy, contemporary, horror, something else), since this will influence the kind of flavor the next steps are gonna take.

Once you've got the things that make you excited, what I would do next is make a wish list: I enjoy being mean to my blorbos so I call it the "wouldn't it be fucked" exercise, but if you're a kinder writer you could run it as the "wouldn't it be cool/fun/epic/etc" exercise. Basically, you're starting to create scenarios. "Dude, wouldn't it be fucked if my blorbo had [insert autistic trait/characteristic from earlier], so they [did action persuant to it/reacted to situation accordingly] and then [insert conflict]?" This is especially fun to do with friends, because then you can riff on each other's ideas.

At this point, you'll hopefully have ended up with a better sense of what kind of scenarios your autistic character could get into that you'd enjoy writing. Quite possibly you've created some other aspects of the world - some bad guys, some of the autistic character's friends, maybe a few settings, that kind of thing. Now, you can take the ones that you like, and which fit together, and see what connective tissue is missing: maybe you know that for a scenario certain characters would have to have particular other experiences together, or some tension would need to be built for a scene to carry it's weight, or whatever. You can also flesh out your characters to give them more depth than you've been able to do thus far.

From here, how you plot your story is pretty much up to you and your style, but if you've already created a few major beats of your story with autistic traits baked in, then you should have more freedom to do what you want with the rest of it, in ways that keep your autistic characters autistic, and make that actually mean something, without necessarily making the story itself About Autism.

I'm autistic and I've been wanting to write autistic characters for a long time, but, when I come up with a story/character idea, I don't really know how autism could fit into it.

I've written a story about time travel and thought of having one of the main characters as autistic, but I didn't end up doing it because I couldn't figure out what her special needs, difficulties and special interests were and when and how put that between the plot and I still can't really figure out how to incorporate autistic characters into a non-autism-centered plot and flesh out autistic characters. Do you have any advice on how to "fit autism into characters and plots", or more specifically, "how do I start having the subject of autism in mind while developing characters and the plot of my stories to apply it better?"

Hi asker,

The truth is you can't necessarily start with just autism in mind and develop a non-autism plot around it. I'm sure it's possible, but that doesn't seem super easy to me at all. You kind of need the plot and the characters to develop together. Only one at a time and it’ll fall apart, generally speaking.

What, overall, has been what hasn't worked? What about the time travel didn't work? What about your plot made it hard for you to incorporate an autistic character?

I can't tell you how to write A Plot, because this has to be your own thing. But I can tell you that pretty much any plot can have an autistic character. Here is a list of plots I’ve read, very summarized, with autistic characters as a protagonist or a large part of the plot:

slice of life where the general conflict comes from interpersonal relationships and the struggle of navigating these; characters are children and adults like

realistic fiction where the autistic protagonist’s best friend goes missing and she wants to find her

horror where four friends are stuck in a house in the woods, with a killer on the lose and one of the friends is autistic

romance (with all the romance conventions) where one or both people are autistic

realistic fiction where an autistic child may or may not be guilty of a crime (i think i've actually read like 3 of these?)

horror ocean expedition where the journalist brought on board is autistic

historical 1980s middle grade where the autistic nonverbal higher support needs protagonist is in foster care and special ed struggling with missing her missing sister as well as people underestimating her

historical 1930s books where the protagonist’s older sister is autistic and the plot is both normal slice of life stuff and living in Alcatraz stuff

neurodivergent utopia/dystopia with rock candy robots and lost children

middle grade books where the plot focuses on heavier themes like abuse, drugs, death, or whatnot

autistic woman learning to live by herself after the death of her mother

gothic horror where, after a marriage of convenience, the autistic protagonist discovers her husband is being haunted

These are just books that I personally have read (many are middle grade fiction because I just like reading middle grade), many years ago, and just off the top of my head. So there is a bias here of "books I personally know of and in genres I personally enjoy." But I wanted to include them to show you that there's a lot of things you can do, even if just from the perspective of "things this one person has read."

See how different they all can be from each other? You can basically stick an autistic character anywhere. You can think of a plot and then think, "how would my character act/react to this?"

Think about it this way: In real life, various autistic people lead incredibly different lives. And that's without even adding in the elements you can introduce in fiction that don't exist in real life, like time travel or mermaids or dragons or little gray aliens or telekinesis or whatever it is.

I know you're autistic as well, but I think you should research various different presentations of autism. Autism is pretty heterogenous, even with characteristics in common. That might help you get inspired on a particular path for a story, or a specific character path.

Something else that might help you is to create a plot, and then think about how you would react to it. Then tweak that reaction to something that better fits your story.

Honestly, genuinely, it can be difficult to think of this – but the only way out is through.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

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THE ENTIRE WEST IS BEING PUT UP FOR SALE AND I AM BEGGING YOU TO CALL YOUR SENATORS

Trump’s budget bill has many, many things in it, but buried amongst it is the MILLIONS OF ACRES OF PUBLIC LAND FOR SALE.

This is the entirety of the Arizona state forests, the entire Cascades mountain range. Swathes of pristine desert around the national parks in Utah. On the doorstep of Jackson Hole.

THIS BILL IS BIG, BUT IT CAN BE AMENDED AND ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT PASS AS IS please.

If you have ever enjoyed the wilderness, we stand to lose it all forever.

CALLING your senators - NOT JUST IN THE WEST. ALL SENATORS, is CRUCIAL.

Outdoor alliance has a great resource for reaching out.

I don’t have a huge following but please, everywhere I have ever loved, the forests I grew up playing in, the land I got married on, is all at risk and I am begging.

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ChatGTP rotting away your brain

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at a conference I attended recently, a researcher pointed to the difficulty of finding material in archives because so much depends on the metadata and the terminology used to describe things changes over time. "it would be so helpful," the researcher said, "if I typed 'lesbian' into the library of congress database, it would also show me results that were categorised in the 50s, when the materials were interpreted as 'intimate female friendships'"

which is what tag wrangles at Archive Of Our Own do incredibly effectively: searching for "omegaverse" also leads to "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "alternate universe: a/b/o" and so on. but ao3 achieves this frankly incredible categorisation and indexing system by the power of countless volunteers putting in hours and hours of unpaid and unthanked free time, and it's completely understandable that most archives do not have that kind of infrastructure, but also how incredible that a fan-run website has better searchability, classification, and accessibility than the library of congress

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to put it simply: there are millions of stories where the world is about to end and our protagonists need to save it. your job, as the author, is to show me what about the world makes it worth saving to these particular characters. THAT is where the story is.

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thinking about when my professor told me how the boards of companies/orgs/etc. will sometimes hire on a CEO/whatever who they know will basically take a chainsaw to existing infrastructure, let them fuck as much shit up as possible, and then promptly fire them as soon as they've accomplished what the board wanted them to do. then they can point the finger at that guy & look like they're the heroes and the problem is resolved because he's gone now. and they still get to keep all the changes they wanted that nobody else did.

anyway I think it's fun and all to watch the two most divorced men on the planet publicly divorce each other. and also. maybe keep that in mind, is all.

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"Pride is not a party"

Yes the fuck it is, stop being a baby

Yes pride is a riot and a fight and yadda yadda yadda but you are not revolutionary for sucking the joy out of queerness. Sometimes, pride is a party. It is a celebration of the fact that we are here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere. And that is just as important as throwing bricks and fighting cops, actually.

If your activism doesn't allow you to enjoy the fruits of your labors you will burn out babe. Go suck some dick. Hit on that lesbian. Get the faggy haircut!!! Dance, for the love of god.

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“ hold the line until somone who actually gives a shit comes” people like you have been saying this for half a century . “Reinforcements” ain’t coming , and the dems use this argument to get away with doing absolutely fuck all every single time they get power because hey look at him he’s worse . Hell half of us our votes are worse than useless from gerrymandering Everybody I know has had enough of being told the sun will come out tommorow if we just eat shit today .

In reference to this post (linked)

So i'm gonna preface this by saying, I hear you. Because this situation is beyond fucked and I wish that everyone would just get their head out of their ass and actually represent in this representative democracy rather than play emperor wannabe. You are right in that the democratic party, especially as it stands now, are not our saviors. And you are right that the maps have been gerrymandered into oblivion.

However, I stand by what I said.

First, gerrymandered maps up until recently had to still look competitive, even if they weren't, in order to get through. What this means is if you get enough people out to the polls, especially people who don't normally vote and were thus not part of the calculations, districts can be flipped. Maps are also drawn based on likely voters, people who have already shown they're consistent about coming out. Therefore, it does not include first-timers; it does not include the youngest of voters.

This is what stopped the red wave. Generation Z voted about 70% blue and came out in record numbers. There will be two years more worth of them during the next election. There is no reason to believe they won't do it again, especially since the state of the country has gotten even more severe. It's not some "hopefully someone out there gives a shit and will magically change their decisions." It's "there's a fuckton of people who already do give a shit and weren't old enough to voice it yet."

Second, I am not saying the dems care. I am not. But they are not the ones about to default on our country's loans and send the world economy into recession. They are not pushing for forms of genocide on trans people. They are not pushing for forms of genocide on the latino population. They are not endorsing outright hate groups. They are not the ones cutting people off from abortion access. They are not the ones banning books in schools. They are not the ones pushing to make guns more and more accessible every time a school gets shot up. They are not the ones who told their followers to seize the capital after they lost an election. No. It's the Republican party that is doing all of that.

This is why I said "hold the line." Not "this will be victory." One election isn't going to make this go away. I wish it would, but it won't. However. Part of the reason it's getting so bad is because the politicians who are making hate and scapegoating core to their career thinks it will work and they will not change unless it is beyond painfully obvious it won't. The bar is on the ground right now. The first order of business is establishing that bringing shovels is not acceptable.

Third, I refuse to sit back, go belly up, and surrender. Using your expression, "being told we just have to eat shit today," it's either that or starving to death. It's not fun, it's not pretty, and I am certainly not saying that you should like it, but it's hard to grow and cultivate some nice crops if you're dead.

Here's the thing. No successful movement in history worked because its members were telling each other "this is useless we might as well give up." That pushes new members away. It stops people from even trying. There's a reason voting rights are so contentious in this country, and it's because if people believe their voice has power, they're going to use it, and that will give it power. I don't think that this post will change your mind. If you are this jaded, 900ish words won't do it. However, I ask that you keep the nihilism to yourself. For all you know, the people who you talk to could be the reinforcements and you do no one any favors by going and stopping them before they get a chance to start. We may be more or less on the same side, but the thing about friendly fire is it ain't all that friendly.

I say "hold the line" because a sense of camaraderie gives people hope. Hope is what fuels change. Part of my job in this fight is to get more people to join. It is about proactively generating reinforcements. And before you say "but posts on tumblr of all places aren't going to do that," I will say that tumblr is only a piece of this. I can make a whole separate post on that if people want, but I firmly believe that if I talk the talk, I gotta walk the walk.

And what if I'm wrong and you're right and none of it's going to change the state of the country? Because of everything else, we have a mental health crisis in this country. Having a longterm goal is huge for people who are trying to find the strength to pull themselves out of that pit. I know this from firsthand experience, and from watching other people grow once they had a chance to find purpose themselves. Giving people the opportunity to care about something, to find connections, that is a worthy goal in and of itself, even if it only helps people on an individual level.

This is all to say, while I hear you and I am not saying you have to change your beliefs, I ask that you do not get in the way of the people who are trying to do something about it.

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I have some news for members of the united states armed forces who feel like they are pawns in a political game and their assignments being unnecessary.

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So far in LA an Australian news reporter has been shot in the leg by a rubber bullet, a British reporter has been shot by a sponge bullet and sent to the hospital for emergency surgery. A NY Post reporter has been shot in the head with a rubber bullet and went to the hospital for a large bruise on his forehead, whiplash and neck pain, and CNN reporters were handcuffed and escorted away being told to not come back or they will be arrested BECAUSE they are reporters.

It seems like all reporters there to give the real story are being targeted by police/ICE/military in LA.

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Just finished that chapter and yeah that line hit me too. That's why the whole being visible thing matters.

I’m working my way through Pageboy by Elliot Page

Chapter 21 is short and sweet, maybe 2 full pages, its final two sentences “her visibility meant the world to me. I think about this as I walk through the world now.” Fucking hit.

I want to be visible for queer kiddos, young folks who haven’t been told it’s wrong yet or those who have, who might discover something about themselves later in life that’ll make a lot of things make sense. I want to and will be louder in my queerness, the second I am out of this house, and I am so excited for it.