Pi

Wtf! Not okay!

Loved this 100%! I remember watching the then groundbreaking “Ellen kiss” with my mom and sister when I was a teenager. This song and its performance on SNL feels even more groundbreaking. A young lesbian woman, in hyper femme drag, announcing not only that she is a giver but that she gets women off every time and better than any man is perfection.

Thank you Chappell Roan! I hope IRL you find all the givers and takers that your heart, body and mind desires.

Are those beavers or bears dancing in the background?

Chappell Roan debuts new song "The Giver" live on SNL 11/02/2024.

Clarke

Looking forward to a The 100 « Puppy Episode »

Ya know, an episode similar to the one on Ellen when Susan and Ellen kiss for the first time.

Scene Clarke and Bellamy have an intense moment, kiss and then pull apart with a funny look on their faces followed by this dialogue.

Bellamy Ummm

Clarke: Ahhhh

Bellamy: Did you feel anything?

Clarke (shaking head): Nope. No spark.

Bellamy (nodding): Yep, none.

Clarke (shrugs shoulders): Cool. So about those plans We are about to change 20 times in the next 42 minutes ....

SOCIAL MEDIA "ACTIVISM" IS KEEPING YOU FROM ACTUAL ACTIVISM - HERE'S THE TRUTH

You think you're staying "informed" by doomscrolling through your social feeds 24/7? That's exactly what they want. It's literally designed to keep you angry, scrolling, and - most importantly - doing absolutely fucking nothing.

HERE'S WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU:

It's OKAY to edit your feeds so you don't see that shit when you're just trying to exist

You do NOT have to consume the world's suffering every second of every day to be a "good activist" - and by the way? You're not even getting "informed" by scrolling. You need to actually look up real articles OFF of social media to understand what's happening

Hitting like and share isn't activism. Sorry. It just isn't.

You wanna actually do something?

Learn your neighbors' names. ACTUALLY TALK TO THEM about what's happening

Join your school board and ask them face-to-face why they're against queer education

Stand up to your racist uncle instead of "keeping the peace" (peace for WHO exactly?)

Find out what abortion rights groups are ALREADY DOING in your area instead of reinventing the wheel

Join an actually inclusive church (you know, like Jesus would've wanted) and see what they're ALREADY DOING to make the world better

And for fuck's sake, stop saying "oh I don't talk about politics" - YOUR SILENCE IS POLITICAL

NEWSFLASH: You don't have to start the fucking underground railroad by yourself. That shit ALREADY EXISTS - you just never had to use it before. Lucky you. So volunteer if you're a safe person, at whatever level works for you:

Send money

Show up in person

Pack supplies

Make pamphlets

Whatever you can do

Not everything's gonna get you in the history books and you know what? IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

And here's something else that matters: Going to trauma therapy - REAL trauma therapy with a therapist informed in decolonization practices - is a RADICAL ACT. If you have the means to do it, DO IT. Healing yourself is part of the work too.

AND LISTEN UP BECAUSE THIS IS IMPORTANT: IT'S OKAY THAT IT TOOK YOU THIS LONG IT'S OKAY THAT YOU'RE STARTING SMALL IT'S OKAY THAT YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING

NO ONE EVER PUNISHED THEMSELVES INTO SUCCESS.

You grew up with some racist/sexist views? Yeah, most of us did. You can't get stuck there. There's too much at stake. It's time to deconstruct. It's time to do the work.

But scrolling and sharing posts while feeling guilty? That's not the work. That's what they want you to think the work is.

Get off your phone. Talk to your neighbors. Show up at meetings. Stand up to family. THAT'S the work.

author: sorry I’m jumping on this bandwagon and writing a fic with the same premise as all these other fics

me, has read 500 fics like this one and is prepared to read 500 more: please never apologize for giving the people (me) what they (also me) want

Awkward work moment

Hmmmm how to explain this one ... well, here goes :) Today I was in my boss’s office discussing a project. At one point my boss suggested, “you keep reading <that thing > on that display and I will review <other thing> over on this screen” moving the GUI window containing <other thing> onto the second screen. We each did our own reading for a bit and then ... I realized that when the <other thing >’s GUI was moved, it revealed a text file. The text file contained the words “clit” and “pussy”. It was being edited in vim. My initial reaction, “OMFG kindred spirit!”. Reaction two, “is this a fanfic? Could it be a clexa fanfic!?” Reaction three, “maybe I follow their tumblr blog!” Reaction four, “sigh. this is all kinds of inappropriate “ I excused myself to use the loo. When I got back, the erotica was no longer on the screen. Probably for the best. I mean, what if they had been writing bellarke? That would have killed our work relationship.

Where’s Metallica when you need them?

There’s a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue! 

I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product. 

Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: “Because diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.” Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?

Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.

Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases. 

Artists, speak out against this predatory practice! Our art should not be exploited without our consent, and we deserve to be compensated when our art is exploited for commercial use. 

I identify as a fattie queer. All other sexual orientation labels feel like a lie to me and don’t fit right when I wear them. I’m queer.

queer is literally a slur. like you’ve never been called that in a derogatory context like most lgbt people? you think your experiences escaping homophobia make it okay to justify the use of a homophobic slur?

queer is an identity.

it has also been used as a slur. there is no denying that. but using a word as a slur does not make it a slur. because before queer is a slur it is an identity. before it is derogatory it is a label. the use of queer as an identity is infinitely more important than the use of queer as a slur because the people who identify as queer are infinitely more important than the people who use queer as a slur.

say a lot of people decided they hated me. despised me. were disgusted by me to the point where my own name became a slur. would you tell me not to say it? would you tell me i could no longer be helena, and instead must come up with a euphemism for the name that belonged to me decades before it belonged in the mouths of bigots?

because that would make you an enabler.

you would tell me i can’t say my name anymore because some lowlife decided he could use it to insult me?

you would tell a gay man that he can’t be gay anymore because some teens in the early 2000’s started calling everything they didn’t like “gay”, and now he has to say “same sex oriented male identifying individual”?

does that enrage you? because it should. that’s exactly how you sound.

you are telling me i cannot use my label. you are telling me that when my great-uncle shouted until his face was red and he spat tobacco and the word queer at my feet, he was right. he was right to insult me, and i was wrong to say my name.

you are shitting on every single one of our predecessors. you are slandering every person who fought for their rights to exist and and be tolerated and be celebrated in their countries, every person who was lost to the aids epidemic, every person whose country criminalizes love and gender expression, every child whose parents abandoned them for straying from the norm, every person who was born and will die in the closet longing to be themselves. the queer umbrella is a safety net, a security blanket, the comfort of being known without being pressured to tell. it is near and dear and important as fuck to every member of the lgbt+ community and you are a blight upon the earth you walk.

how dare you speak upon my experiences with homophobia. how dare you disguise your own homophobia as activism. and how fucking dare you have the audacity to come to my blog and hide behind an anonymous ask and preach to me about how i’m oppressing myself. go look at the fucking wikipedia page for queer and read about how 1980s lgbt+ activists, especially lgbt+ people of color, fought to call themselves queer in a world that still hates peculiar things. and here you are forty years later spitting queer back at their feet.

i don’t give a fuck if people start using my name as a slur. my name is still helena. i will not change it. i chose it, i like it, and it belongs to me. it does not belong to bigots no matter how badly they want it. your discomfort with my identity is not my fucking problem.

i am helena. i am queer. die mad & go fuck yourself

Yes yes yes! Thank you!

Recently Updated Works-in-Progress Clexa Fic Recommendations

Howdy Clexakru! For our next installment of Clexa fic recommendations, I am focusing on Recently Updated Works-In-Progress. The majority of these fics have been updated within the past couple months. There are so many great WIP out there, so this is Part 1. I may do another list that focuses on those WIP that have been updated in the past 6-months or so (cause writers have lives too and shouldn’t be overlooked just because they aren’t able to update sooner). Without further ado:

A Crown Seldom Enjoyed by @onemilliongoldstars: Oh hell yes the Game of Thrones crossover you never knew you needed (well that’s a lie, we have all been secretly pining for this fic). This author’s writing style is beautifully romantic but completely realistic. It is soft when necessary but strong when it matters. It is, in one word, enrapturing. I tried to wait till this was complete so I could binge it, but I couldn’t wait. It was totally worth going to bed at 3am to finish it.

Earning it Back, Heart Upon the Southern Ground, and Behind the Stars by @sassymajesty: Guys, I don’t know how to explain to you in words the extent to which I love this author’s writings. The angst, the slow burn, the fluff, the angst, the love, the heartbreak, did I mention the angst? Jesus the last update of EIB was perfection but I am so scared of what lies ahead. When reading these fics I am always reminded of the saying “nothing worth having in this world comes easy”.

For Madi by thelovelypintobean: Fair warning, this is a Bellarke engagement but a Clexa endgame (OK OK STOP YELLING, HEAR ME OUT). Bellamy and Clarke have a kid together, Madi, but Clarke is in love with her best friend, Lexa. Bellamy proposes and Clarke says yes “for Madi” (Hey, that’s the title of the fic!). What I really like so far is that Lexa and Clarke don’t fight their attraction, like in so many fics. They are magnets that can’t help themselves when they are alone. Chapter 2 is a little messy with a bunch of new characters but keep going because it is shaping up to be a good ride.

My Heart is the Hardest to Break by @jazzyjazzin: Lexa tutors Clarke and in return gets tips on how to make a girl fall in love with her (as if anyone wouldn’t just fall in love with Lexa at first sight). Of course, Clarke is oblivious as to where Lexa’s true feelings lie. This has been such a roller coaster of emotions and the payoff has been worth it. I can’t wait to see how this ends.

Except You Love by @theproseofnight: I’m going to need a broom to sweep up my broken heart after reading this one. Clarke and Lexa break up after a once-in-a-lifetime romance due to opposite responses to a tragedy. The emotional breakdown this author creates is captivating. The layered details of the before, during, and after break-up scenes are reminiscent of the style of Lover in Low Light (for those who know their Clexa fic history, you know that is not a compliment to be taken lightly).

Battle Lines 2 by @gorgondrifter: This is a sequel to Battle Lines (hence the “2”). I tell you, I just adore this series. Battle Lines starts right after Clarke and Lexa do the naughty but Lexa doesn’t die. There is loads of love and pining between the two. I really enjoy the exploration of the “what if Lexa didn’t die” canon divergent stories and this one always puts a smile on my face. The writing style is fast-paced, gives just enough detail to keep you interested, and has matured over the course of the series. Give this a shot.

She’s New by @artsy-polarbear: Ah, did you think I would forget about this one? Hell no! I am adoring this take of a nerdy, lonely Clarke and a popular, outgoing Lexa. This is refreshing compared to how most fics imagine the two characters. However, many of the qualities we love about the two remain. We still have protective Lexa and oblivious Clarke. I read this one with a never-ending smile on my face.

Sleepless in Seattle by @lorig11: Do you want to laugh out loud on the metro and have everyone look at you like you are crazy? Do you want to have to stifle a laugh behind your hand while sitting in a quiet doctor’s office? Well have I got the fic for you! I freaking love the fun, witty style of this author’s works. If the humor brings you in, it’s the deep, well-written connection between Clarke and Lexa that makes you stay. The last update had me throwing a temper tantrum like a child who just got told pizza was not a vegetable.

Devotion to Duty, Stellar Collision, Polis Tattoo, Breaking the Ice, Titanic: The Untold Story by @thessclexa: Is that 5 WIP all updated recently?! Yes, yes it is! And the best part? They are all amazing! I honestly cannot tell you which one is my favorite because they are all so different and amazing. Spend a Sunday binging these and it will be a Sunday well spent (or just blow off work to read them, like I did).

Closer by @rivertalesien: Clarke is an escort and Lexa is one of her clients. What happens when identities are discovered and feelings develop? There is an intelligence to this writing that I haven’t seen in awhile. The author requires the reader to pay attention to time and place as the story unfolds. I am enamored by that author’s phrasing choices, such as “sensual carnality”. Clarke’s switch from soft to dominating beautifully reflects her internal battle with her feelings.

Heaven Sent by @effortlesslyopulent: Clarke was sent down to Earth many years before the Ark crashes. She and Lexa marry and rule together. Now the Ark has crashed and Clarke’s loyalties are tested. Oh how I adore this fic! As the angst grows, Lexa and Clarke’s love grows with it. For anyone who has been asked to choose between family or the love of your life, you will relate to Clarke’s “decision” in the latest chapter.

Show Me Your Colors by CommanderHearteyes071215: Clarke teaches at Arkadia HIgh and Lexa is the new teacher. Lexa is cold and stand-offish but Clarke is determined to get to know her. Guys, the banter between the two is fantastic. Their favorite thing to say to each other? “I hate you”, “I hate you too”. They are both oblivious to their mutual love but they aren’t fooling those around them. This has been such a fun and easy read.

Everything Is The Same As It Was by @aphrodites-law: One day all 7 billion people on earth vanish - except for Clarke. At least, that’s what she thought until she was staring down the barrel of Lexa’s gun. It is so Clexa that is would take the end of the world for them to find each other. This is a slow burn, fluffy fic about two sweet souls just trying to find something worth living for. A comforting-type of fic.

Lancelot by @almostafantasia: Kingsman/Secret Agent AU. Lexa is a British secret agent (oh yeah she has a British accent in this one; you’re welcome) and Clarke is the President’s daughter. During a mission gone wrong, they both find themselves instantly drawn to each other. This fic is filled with lighthearted Anya bantering and action-packed scenes. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride so far.

Well, that’s the list for now. If there are any lists you would like to see in the future, drop me a line. I have some ideas lined up already. Until next time, remember to spread the love to all our amazing authors.