Straight cis perisex able-bodied neurotypical people using aids designed for disabled people (I.e weighted blankets, grabby claw, sock holder, etc), going to therapists occasionally to keep up their mental health, using fidget toys, choosing to call their bf/gf their partner, using pronouns besides the ones associated with their gender just because they like it, and doing a million other small things that make us fitting in and being accepted a little bit easier is in fact exactly the type of support these communities need, and will ultimately help us so much more than gatekeeping ever fuckin will
one time as a kid I forcefully shoved two magnets together, and these were the strong magnets my dad used in his shop to pick-up missing little metal bits, and I held them really tightly in the palm of my hand, went up to this one kid who legit said things like “I think black cats are bad, they should be drowned” and drew crosses on the notebooks of kids if she found out they didn’t go to church, I told her “Hey. I’m a witch. If you don’t stop trying to hurt animals and picking on kids, I’ll use my magic to throw you into the sky”, and when she dared to doubt my powers I told her that I had two “rocks” in my hand that I could send across the playground, then I opened my hand the the magnets shot off in two different directions (we were over in a spot that was empty, so no other kids were around, nobody got hurt), one of them stuck to a drainpipe and the other stuck to a fence. This kid SCREAMED, and ran to the office, and I guess had her mom pick her up from school, and then she wasn’t there for a couple of days, finally her mom called my house and claimed I had “traumatized her daughter by performing a terrifying magic trick”, and when my parents asked what I did I just said “I showed her a magnet and she flipped out. She’s not gonna be happy when she finds out about gravity, either”. eventually this kid came back to school and always made a point to come up to me and say “Hey, my mom told me not to talk to you!”, and would just be like “Good job, you already screwed that up”
One of my favorite tricks for designing alien species/cultures is to take a real animal with an interesting lifecycle and think about what that biology would translate to if they had human intelligence
Example: silk moths as a base species
Because the moths themselves don’t eat and only live long enough to mate and then starve to death, the entire culture is made up of children and adolescents. The older children raise the younger ones, with families being made up of hatchmates from different years.
Because molts and eventual transformation into a short lived adult happen on a set schedule, families have a cycle— when your oldest set of siblings cocoon to become adults, you wait at the mating grounds and try to adopt their newborns after they pass. If that fails, you take any ‘orphans’ you can find.
Because death and birth are nearly simultaneous, they have a religion based around reincarnation, and infants with markings similar to a parent are often given their name. Claiming the offspring of a beloved family member is vitally important, because you want to be able to protect their soul and keep them close.
Because it’s hard to track the offspring of your male family members, there are sometimes major fights when a family sees an infant with familiar markings in another family’s clutch.
Between mating seasons, their culture is extremely food-oriented, because everyone is growing and silkworms eat nigh constantly. They spend most of their lives outdoors but sleep and shelter from bad weather in large family dwellings made from wood and the remains of the silk cocoons of prior generations.
everyone is really vibing with the silkworm aliens I see
I decided to dress up as Danny when doing some trading on Animal Crossing New Horizons. Then I ran past my (now favorite) villager Tad and he said the most perfect thing ever;
Needless to say, I just had to draw them together! They’re best buds now :>
When my kids were babies I knew they’d be wearing a lot of hand-me-downs and thrifted stuff, because frankly that’s the only sensible way to dress young children. Anything else is gonna cost an arm and a leg for shit they’ll outgrow in three months and then you’ll spend $50 on some cute set they refuse to wear and it’s just pointless angst. My daughter wore hand me downs from the neighbor boys for most of her first year because the ages worked out.
So I made a conscious decision to always frame that positively. Going to the thrift store is awesome because it’s like a shopping spree every time, Mama will say yes to nearly anything, which is clearly superior to going to Target and being permitted one cute t-shirt and some socks. Hand me downs are even better because they have a history with people you love. And passing stuff down yourself is maybe the best of all, because then you get to see little cuties wearing things you once enjoyed, and enjoy them all over again.
And that attitude has really taken root in the family and been a very positive thing. I love that my computer is made up of me parts but also hand me downs from not one but two different people, carefully crafted into a whole that’s much more than would have been reasonable to spend otherwise. The used parts are still really good, because they came from people who really prioritize their equipment, so they went from “good” to “top of the line” but they knew that “good” was still way better than I had. And the fact that three people collaborated to make something that would suit my needs and optimized their money makes me feel loved by smart people.
So yes, I do know that there’s a stigma against buying used stuff, but I invite you to consider: that is stupid and also wrong. Used stuff is great.
My mom had a friend who’s daughter was a little older than my sister and I and every year or so, my mom would bring home a massive trash bag or even two trash bags saying ‘Girls, we have more clothes from April’ (name changed obv)
We’d go through the trash bags of clothes and were amazed at how much there was. We’d each try them on and pick the ones we liked. What we didn’t want to wear, we sent to goodwill. It was awesome. If you can do that for someone or take advantage of someone doing it for you, please do.
Hand me downs are one of the best ways for a community to show love for each other.
